


seraph

by dothraki_shieldmaiden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel Behaves Like Endverse Castiel (Supernatural), Castiel Has Powers (Supernatural), DCRB 2021, Dean/Cas Reverse Bang, Idiots in Love, Kidnapping, M/M, Mutual Pining, Roommates, Shapeshifting, oh my god they were roommates, sam is the best brother, superheroes are known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 18:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothraki_shieldmaiden/pseuds/dothraki_shieldmaiden
Summary: Dean Winchester's life is pretty normal. He loves his car, loves his brother, and loves his job counseling troubled teens. He's also in love with his roommate, Castiel Novak, who's also known as Seraph, the city's Super.That part is a little less normal.Between Cas' powers, Dean's inability to communicate his attraction for his roommate, and a sinister new Super in the city, known by the name of Shapeshifter, Dean's life actually isn't that normal at all.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 49
Kudos: 116
Collections: Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second DCRB, and it was thoroughly enjoyable! I was paired with the lovely [purzelndesbaeumchen](https://purzelndesbaeumchen.tumblr.com/), who did the lovely, lovely embedded artwork. Once I saw that, I HAD to write that story. Make sure to stop by their tumblr and give them lots and lots of love. 
> 
> Also a shoutout goes to [FriendofCarlotta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta), who offered some wonderful advice and cheerleading. Thanks, braintwin. <3 
> 
> I hope you're as excited to read this fic as I was to write it. I've always toyed with the idea of writing a superhero!AU, so it was awesome to finally get that chance. Enjoy, loves!

Over the past two years, Dean’s developed a knack for spotting reporters, but every so often, one manages to slip through his defenses. This time it’s an unassuming blonde. Her square, black-framed glasses give the appearance of studiousness while her conservative ponytail screams that she’s hard-working. Her business casual dress is unassuming and begs to be forgotten, but her eyes are sharp, and honestly, Dean should know better. 

The only thing he can offer in his defense is that it’s been a long day in a series of long days. When Dean got his Master’s in Psychology with a concentration in Adolescent Psychology, he’d done so with the knowledge that there would be hard days. Lately, however, it seems like the difficult days outweigh the easy ones. His days consist of him sitting in his office, sometimes perched on the edge of his desk, sometimes in his chair, and sometimes even on the floor, and listens to kids pour their hearts out. Sometimes they’re brought in by their parents, sometimes by a court order, and sometimes they’re recommended by concerned teachers and principals. Sometimes they don’t want to talk to him, and they spend an hour fiddling with the various toys in the room as they do their level best to ignore him. Sometimes they cry; sometimes they shout. Mostly, they talk: in whispers, and then too fast, like if they take a pause between breaths they’ll forget how to speak. 

He’d spent the last hour with his newest patient, Kaia Nieves. The second she stepped into his office, her eyes darted towards every corner as if she was searching for traps, and she’d perched on the edge of the couch as if she was planning to make a quick getaway. Every question received a sullen shrug or a begrudging one word answer, but then, somewhere around the thirty minute mark, she started to talk, and when she did… She’d avoided anything too monumental, but he could tell that there were horrors lurking underneath the surface. Dean hadn’t pushed, too concerned with creating a solid rapport, and instead, he’d let the conversation unspool naturally. His tactic worked: their session ended with a ghost of a smile darting across Kaia’s face. He was more than willing to call that a victory, especially when he’d talked to Jody Mills, Kaia’s foster mother, and discovered that Kaia rarely spoke unless forced. 

“We’ll see you next week,” she’d said, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes crinkling as she ushered Kaia out of the room. After they left, Dean sat at his desk and typed up his notes, carefully not thinking about everything which Kaia had left out. By the time he left the office, he was almost drooping with exhaustion, so he thinks he can be forgiven for letting the reporter slip through his defenses. 

She’s earnest and polite when she approaches him. At first Dean thinks that she’s just going to ask him for directions. She falls into step beside him, offering a small smile as she comments, “Not a bad night out.” 

As a rule, Dean abhors small talk, but he can make an exception for a cute blonde. “Yeah, it’s definitely a change from the rain.” 

The blonde laughs lightly. “You’re right. I was convinced that everyone was going to start growing mold from all the damp. No matter how long I live here, I still can’t get used to the rain.” 

Dean shrugs. “You get used to everything, eventually.” He doesn’t mention how he likes the rain. Something about it feels cozy and comforting. 

Dean walks along with the woman in a semi-comfortable silence for a few steps, but eventually, the apartment building looms large overhead. No matter how many times he sees it (at least twice a day coming and going), Dean never gets used to its belligerent jut towards the sky. It’s like a middle finger raised at Dean’s whole background. Cas has explained the necessity of their living at this particular building, several times, but Dean still can’t accept it. 

“Well, this is me,” he says, feeling the familiar curl of guilt in his gut when the blonde’s eyes flick to the top of the apartment building and then down to him. “Have a nice night.” 

“Thanks, you too,” she says, but she doesn’t move. Dean’s instincts stir in unease, but it isn’t until she says, “Oh, one more thing,” that he starts to panic. The past two years have made him uncomfortably familiar with that tone of voice and all the invasions of his privacy that it implies. 

He starts to tell her exactly where she can shove her question, but she beats him to the punch. “So Dean, do you know if Seraph has a response to the recent spike of violent crime sweeping through the city?” 

Fury blooms underneath Dean’s skin, and red tints the edges of his vision. “I thought I made myself clear the last time one of you vultures came sniffing around here,” he snaps. “I don’t work for Seraph. I’m not his fucking mouthpiece, and I sure as hell don’t appreciate being ambushed just so you can get a cheap quote.” 

The blonde is unabashed. The glint of the streetlights on her glasses strikes Dean as oddly sinister. “If Seraph is going to paint himself as the protector of the city and receive government dollars for doing so, don’t you think he should keep the city safe?” 

“I think that you should get off this stretch of sidewalk. This is private property and I could have you prosecuted for trespassing.” Normally, landlords aren’t so zealous in protecting their tenant’s privacy, but when the lease is paid for by the government, most of the rules are bent. 

“And I think that the citizens of this city deserve some kind of accountability.” Any friendliness in the blonde’s face has vanished. The set of her jaw is aggressive, and the pen in her hand could possibly function as a weapon. “A quote from you would go a long way to helping Seraph regain credibility.” 

“You want a quote? Here’s one for you.” Dean raises his middle finger in a gesture that’s definitely not going to make the front pages of any paper and turns to walk up the steps towards the front door. He doesn’t bother to see if the blonde follows him up the stairs; he knows she won’t. 

He punches the code in for the front door and waits until he hears the lock click open. The doorman, Cliff, an additional measure of security since he and Cas moved in, waves a hand at him. Cliff’s eyes are glazed from watching security cameras interspersed with whatever trash TV he can find, but Dean knows better than to assume he’s not constantly on alert. He knows for a fact there’s a loaded gun at the desk and that Cliff knows how to use it. 

“Was she hassling you?” Cliff asks, his eyes flicking to the door. 

“No, but can you make sure that everyone gets her picture? If she shows up again, I want to know about it. And don’t tell Cas,” Dean adds after a pause. “It’ll either upset him or piss him off, and I don’t want to deal with either.” 

Cliff nods. “Have a good night,” he calls. The farewell is perfunctory, not heartfelt; he’s already turned back to the screens in front of him and dismissed Dean. Not that Dean minds; part of his mind still won’t accept that he lives in an apartment with an actual security detail. 

The elevator arrives at the push of a button, and Dean steps in. Thankfully, it’s empty which means Dean’s ride up to the twenty-fifth floor is one of peace and silence. He doesn’t think he could stand the torture of small talk. 

The elevator moves swiftly, as it always does. The first time it zoomed towards the sky, Dean’s stomach had lurched, half of it left on the ground as the rest of it hurtled upwards. Just like the rest of the building, Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever fully adjust to it, but he does the best he can. After a few seconds, the elevator stops at the top floor, and opens into a small foyer. There are only three apartments at this level, and the unit he shares with Cas is the first. The key turns smoothly in the lock, and he walks into the apartment which has been his home for the past two years. 

Inside is dark, not that Dean expected anything else. It’s only six in the evening; there’s no reason to suspect Cas would be home. Without another person in the apartment, the space seems to expand until it’s wide enough to swallow Dean whole. From the front door, he walks down the hallway, past the laundry, powder room, and office. The main living area is open-plan, providing him a clear view to the dining room, living room, and kitchen. Everything is pristine, like a show home and not like an apartment occupied by two thirty year old bachelors. The kitchen appliances gleam dully in the light streaming in through the large windows in the living room. They span the length of the wall and open out to the balcony. They also provide a stunning view of the city below. 

Dean doubts that the government had the view in mind when they chose this apartment for Cas to live in, but it’s one of the very few perks he can find about the changes in his lifestyle. He rolls his eyes before he checks to make sure that the door leading from the balcony into the living room is unlocked. It’s not necessary: unlocked doors aren’t really a barrier for Cas, but it’s something that helps Dean recapture some of the feeling of the good old days, back when he could take care of Cas with a gesture as simple as making a fresh pot of coffee. These days, Cas takes care of everyone, and no one takes care of Cas. He never lets them get close enough to even try. 

With that thought weighing on his mind, Dean retreats into his room. The decor is simple: just his bed, a small table, and a chest of drawers for his clothes. There’s a chair which Sam insisted would be for when Dean wanted to read before bedtime, but which exists mostly for Dean to toss his clean clothes that he doesn’t feel like folding on top of. He didn’t spend a lot of time making his room look nice. After all, it’s not like anyone other than Sam is ever going to see it. 

After changing into a band tee and a pair of sweats, Dean wanders into the kitchen. He’s not exactly hungry, but he should eat. Otherwise, he’s going to wake up in the middle of the night absolutely ravenous. He’s done that one too many times and now has a tiny pudge around his middle to show for it. 

A quick look around the contents of their fridge provides no inspiration. Several tupperwares contain leftovers, but other than that, it’s just condiments and a few bags of shredded cheese. Some brightly colored crap in the crisper drawers that Dean isn’t going to touch with a ten-foot pole. 

Sighing, Dean pulls out the least hideous looking leftovers and heats them in the microwave. About twice a week, he makes the effort to cook and then lives off of leftovers for the rest of the week. He used to cook more, but that was when he had someone to appreciate his efforts. He tried, in the very beginning, when Cas was just starting to get invited to parties, galas, and events (what the difference is between those three is, Dean doesn’t know, but Cas assures him it exists), but more meals went cold than not. Eventually, Dean took the hint and stopped. 

He puts the rest of the leftovers back in the fridge just as the microwave dings. Taking care not to burn his fingers on the hot plate, Dean takes his meal out to the living room. After a moment’s thought, he goes back to the kitchen and grabs a beer. After yet another moment’s thought, he takes two. 

Netflix comes up automatically when Dean turns on the television, and he spends a few moments scrolling through what’s available. He rolls his eyes as he flips past several documentaries. He and Cas share an account, which means that Cas’ weird ass tastes get lumped in with his (infinitely better) tastes. He finally stumbles across a cop procedural that promises to be mind-numbingly predictable, but Dean isn’t looking for innovative writing. He wants background noise, something loud with a lot of explosions, to distract him from his own thoughts. 

He and Cas used to watch shows like this with the volume down and, based on what truly improbable events were happening on screen, provided their own dialogue. Dean’s lines weren’t half bad, but dry sarcasm was where Cas excelled. Hearing Cas’ deep, deadpan voice spouting out dialogue such as _“Rodrigo. I will never love again. And also, before you die, what’s the wifi password?”_ over the backdrop of a wildly wailing woman could reduce Dean to tears. 

That was when he and Cas used to live in their shitty, two-bedroom apartment back when he and Cas had both been trying to make ends meet. Dean had been tending bar to help put himself through his Master’s program. On the weekends, Cas would help because the library paid nickels. They were exhausted more often than not and usually worried about making rent at the end of month. Yet in hindsight, those were some of the happiest times of Dean’s life. 

His life is a Cinderella story, except Dean is living happily ever after part, and he just wants to go back to the days when he was scrubbing the floor. 

-_-_-_-_-

No matter how many times he walks a red carpet, Castiel doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to thousands of flashbulbs exploding in his face. 

His pupils, already sensitive to light, expand and contract rapidly enough to make him dizzy, but his role at events is clear. At least, Balthazar has explained it to him enough that he should know it backwards and forwards. His job at these events is to smile, offer appropriate remarks (written beforehand by Balthazar), and shake hands. Then he’s free to leave and do whatever else he wants (though Balthazar warns that his extracurricular activities should be discreet enough to avoid notice). 

As Castiel makes his way down the red carpet, dozens of reporters shout questions at him in a dizzying cacophony of noise. 

“Seraph! Seraph, can you tell us about the mayor’s new initiative to fight crime in the lower wards?” 

“Seraph! Would you like to comment on the crime waves sweeping through downtown?” 

“Seraph! Do you think that violent criminals should suffer harsher prison sentences?” 

Castiel ignores them all and raises his hand in a short wave. His smile is forced, but no one seems to notice. A bead of sweat works its way down his spine to pool at the small of his back. His suit coat hangs on him like a coffin, while his tie feels like a noose. What he wouldn’t give to just show up at one of these events in his regular clothes, but he was told, in no uncertain terms, by Balthazar that would be unacceptable. 

(Castiel isn’t sure why his Seraph suit would be such a breach of etiquette. It’s not as though there are people flocking to see Castiel Novak. They’re paying thousands of dollars to get their photograph taken with Seraph, and what better way to achieve that than by wearing his suit? Even with this reasonable argument, Balthazar still demands that Castiel wear the designer clothing he picks out for him, and under the terms of his government contract, Castiel is helpless to do anything else other than obey.)

Balthazar easily falls into step beside Castiel the moment he’s out of the camera’s range. “Smile, darling,” he says, lifting his hand in a wave to an invisible crowd. “At least pretend like you’re having a good time.” 

“If you wanted someone to look like they’re having a good time, then just hire an actor to impersonate me,” Castiel says through gritted teeth. “They’d do a better job than me.” 

“Aw, don’t get down on yourself, Cassie. No one can replicate those baby blues.” Castiel grits his teeth. Despite being warned, _repeatedly_ , not to use that nickname, Balthazar continues. Castiel thinks Balthazar might _enjoy_ his irritation in some perverse way. 

“How much longer until I can leave and do my real job?” 

“Would it kill you to enjoy one of these events?” 

“I mean, maybe. If someone attacks the event while I’m busy enjoying it, then yeah, I guess it could kill me.” 

Balthazar tosses his head back in an overly theatrical groan, but his eyes never lose their mocking slant. “ _God_ , why couldn’t I have been assigned to one of the fun Supers?” 

Though Balthazar’s complaints seem never-ending, Castiel ignores him. Part of that is just because Balthazar is annoying, but he’s also seen another familiar figure, at least a head taller than everyone else in the crowd. Happiness rustles in Castiel’s chest when the figure turns around and his suspicions are confirmed, and he raises his hand in a short wave. “Sam!” 

Sam Winchester’s handsome face splits in a smile as he spies Castiel through the crowd. “Cas!” he shouts, all decorum forgotten as he hurries through the crowd to meet Castiel. Sam’s embrace is short, but warm, and Castiel happily accepts the thump on the back which seems instinctive to the Winchesters. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” 

“The Neighbors Helping Neighbors organization is one that deserves support.” The words are rote, but this time Castiel means them. This benefit is to help a group home and community center which gives teenagers a safe space to live while preparing them for jobs and college. Though Castiel categorically hates attending these events, at least this one isn’t for a crooked politician seeking reelection. 

Sam’s mouth twists sympathetically. “Contract, huh?” 

“Yeah, but I meant it. There are most certainly worse causes to support.” Castiel looks him over. “Why are you here?” 

“The District Attorney’s office likes to show its support for organizations which help prevent crime.” Sam’s shoulder lifts in a small shrug. “It’s good politics, and as the junior member of the office, I drew the short straw. Not that I mind. Like you said, it’s a good cause.” 

“Yeah.” Castiel takes advantage of the quiet between the red carpet and the interior of the event to just relax in the company of someone who knew him before he was Seraph. It seems as though those acquaintances are fewer and farther between these days. 

“How’s the library?” 

Castiel shrugs. “It’s fine. We just got a new set of 18th century texts in, so we’re going through and cataloguing them before we start scanning their contents.” 

Though Castiel doesn’t mind his job at the university, he misses his former workplace at the public library. At the public library, there were no rare texts to catalogue, and their budget was whatever came after shoestring, to the point where Castiel repaired many of the books with his own supplies, but he had more interaction with the patrons. Children with sticky fingers and sauce smeared at the corners of their mouths would come to him and demand a book, giving him no more information than the very vague ‘I think it had a red cover’ and ‘Maybe there was a lion?’. Somehow, Castiel would find a way to fulfill their requests. Seeing the delight spread over their faces when he performed the impossible and got them their requested book was the highlight of his day. 

The university library has a budget that’s beyond anything Castiel dreamed of as a public librarian. He handles texts that are beyond price, but he misses the exuberant faces of the children, or the cagey faces of the teenagers who would set up shop in the far carrels of the library. He misses the simple pleasure of interacting with other people. These days, most of his time is spent with the texts, and he’s lucky if he sees another person in his workday. 

“We should get together soon,” Sam says, in the tone of someone who knows they’re proposing an empty measure. “You, me, Eileen, and Dean. It’s been a while since we’ve had the two of you over.” 

It’s been two years and seven months, not that Castiel is keeping track. Two years and seven months ago, his whole life was derailed. While he can’t bring himself to resent all of the gains that came from it, sometimes he does miss what he lost. Dinners with the extended Winchester clan are just the tip of the iceberg. 

“I’d like that,” is what Castiel says in response. It’s not a lie, but it does acknowledge the impossible. 

“Yeah. Me too.” Sam’s smile is a little sad. He knows just as well as Castiel the reasons why Castiel isn’t going to be joining them anytime soon. “Anyway. While we’re here, tell me about what’s been going on with you.” 

\---

The dinner stretches on for an eternity. There are dozens of speeches by various political entities, including Sam, and then it comes time for Castiel to speak. When he steps up behind the podium he garners more applause than any other speaker. He reads the short, prepared remarks which Balthazar gave him. The prepared speech mentions the need for heroes from all walks of life, those with powers and those without. It’s drivel, but when he finishes speaking, he gets a standing ovation. 

He slinks back to his seat. The tips of his ears burn a vicious, hot red. No matter how many times he does it, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be accustomed to public speaking, especially not when he feels like a particularly well-trained showdog. Thankfully, Sam is sitting next to him, and his applause is more out of obligation than any desire to curry favor. When Castiel sits down, Sam leans over under the guise of congratulating him, and whispers, “You all right?” 

Sam knows, almost better than anyone, Castiel’s anathema to public speaking. He’s never understood why this is considered a necessary portion of his job. As long as he’s protecting the city, why does it _matter_ what causes he supports? 

“I’m fine.” Everything, from his tone of voice to his tight, pained smile, screams that he’s not fine. Sam knows him well enough to know this, but he also knows him well enough not to push for more. 

Finally, the dinner winds down with an announcement that the organization Neighbors Helping Neighbors raised $500,000 throughout the night. That news, along with Sam’s presence, provide the only bright spots of the night. At least something good came from this. With that money, a teenager in need might find shelter or find that a door which had previously been closed has now opened. 

“I was serious,” Sam says, getting up from the table. “The next time you’re available, call me. I don’t care what else Eileen and I have planned, we’ll cancel it. We miss you.” 

A genuine smile cracks across Castiel’s face. “Thank you, Sam.” 

On impulse, he embraces Sam. Unaccustomed to physical gestures from him, Sam freezes for a moment before he returns the embrace, slapping Castiel on the back in the peculiar mix of affection and violence that seems instinctive to Winchesters. “I’ll see you later, Cas,” Sam says. His rueful smile is the last thing Castiel sees before Balthazar whisks him away. 

“Well, that could have been worse,” Balthazar says, speaking over the noise of the hood vents and city as they walk out of the back exit. “Your steel jawline will be plastered over the papers tomorrow, though I do wish you weren’t so chummy with Sam Winchester?” 

“There’s a problem with me being friendly with law enforcement?” Castiel asks blandly. “I thought you wanted me to foster good relationships with law enforcement so that they would see me as an ally?” 

Balthazar’s mouth dips down in a frown. “I’ll rephrase. We would feel more comfortable if you were a little less publicly friendly with anyone named Winchester. They feel that it shows an unfair bias.” 

Castiel stops dead. It takes Balthazar a few steps to realize that Castiel isn’t walking with him. He turns around with a vaguely annoyed look on his face. “Time’s wasting, Cas. I still haven’t briefed you on the latest crime statistics, and let me tell you, they’re not looking pretty.” 

“What did you mean, that I need to be less publicly friendly with the Winchesters?” 

Balthazar rolls his eyes. “Not again with the bloody Winchesters. They ruin your image, all right? You’re supposed to be the selfless savior of the city, concerned with every citizen, but the papers, blogs, and anyone who’s ever looked at you knows how much you’re up those giants’ asses.” 

“They’re my _friends_ ,” Castiel says with some heat, ignoring the fact that in Dean’s case, he’d like him to be much more than a friend. Sam and Dean have been in his life through trials and tribulations, since he was a college student surviving off of ramen noodles and coffee. They were there for him when his own family deserted him. “I’ve had to give up so much of my…” Fury makes him sputter and Castiel starts again. “I deserve this part of my life. I don’t care what the contract says, or what you say, I’m keeping it.” 

Balthazar never loses his smirk, but it does slip a little. “You know, at some point, we’re going to have to talk about your Winchester Derangement Syndrome,” he begins, but Castiel has had enough. 

One of the most delightful things about his powers is that Castiel is no longer forced to listen to conversations which he has no desire to be a part of. Balthazar is ranting, no doubt working himself up to a fine frenzy, but Castiel finds he has no interest in hearing it. 

Leaving takes no more effort than thinking. Two years ago, when he was just beginning to test the limits of his powers, it was harder for him to fly, but now, it’s almost second nature. All it takes is a little concentration, and Castiel’s wings unfurl from his shoulders. An unearthly blue glow emanates from his skin, and then Castiel takes to the air. 

It’s not flying, at least not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t soar through the air, flapping desperately for lift. His wings work more like teleportation: they spread, he thinks about where he wants to be, they flap, and then he opens his eyes to find himself exactly where he wants to be. Balthazar attempted to explain it to him once as a form of displacing atoms, transferring energy wavelengths, and other science jargon that made Castiel’s eyes glaze over. 

He doesn’t care about any of that. All he cares about is getting away from Balthazar, and that takes him little more than a moment’s thought. Within the space of one breath, he’s in an alley riddled with puddles and trash, and the next breath, he’s stepping onto the balcony outside his and Dean’s apartment. He lands on the balcony because Dean hates when he materializes in the living room. _It’s fucking creepy_ , he’d said, on more than one occasion, and in an effort to avoid fighting, Castiel acquiesced to his request. 

The door to the living room opens silently, and Castiel enters on quiet feet. The only light comes from the weak blue glow of the television. It’s not a problem for Castiel, whose eyes adjust easily to all extremes of light. He spies the remnants of a meal left on the coffee table. A moment later, his eyes pick out Dean, sprawled over the couch. 

His heart performs a curious sense of somersaults as he watches Dean’s chest rise and fall. Castiel’s hand twitches with the desire to reach out and wake him up. Dean might be grumpy at first, but he’ll thaw soon enough. He and Castiel could talk about their day like they used to, maybe share a late-night beer. They could laugh over the absurdity of their lives. 

Castiel’s hand snaps back to his side. 

Those happy days are gone. Lately, Dean’s been snappish, and that’s if Castiel sees him at all. More often than not, he only hears Dean through the barrier of a closed door. Little by little, Dean is withdrawing from him, and Castiel doesn’t know what to do in order to bring him back. 

A frown passes over Dean’s face, like he senses Castiel’s presence and he’s displeased by it. He shivers, his arms tightening around his torso. For a second, Castiel thinks he’s going to wake, but then Dean’s face smooths back into the slackness of sleep. His shivers continue. Castiel’s eyes enable him to catch the wave of goosebumps sweeping over Dean’s arms. 

A throw is tossed haphazardly over the back of the couch, and Castiel tugs at the corner of it to drag it over Dean’s body. A deep sigh of satisfaction leaves Dean as his shivers subside. With a low, content noise, Dean burrows deeper into the couch cushions. 

The desire to touch is almost overwhelming. It settles on Castiel’s shoulders, bitter and heavy. Once upon a time, touching Dean was a thoughtless act, as effortless as breathing. He didn’t think anything of throwing an arm around Dean’s shoulders or reaching out to wipe Dean’s face clean of a smear of condiments. But now, he and Dean exist in their separate orbits. Every day, their planets move further and further away from each other. Soon, they’ll spiral away entirely, never to meet again. 

Castiel takes a deep breath, swallows the bitterness, and goes to bed. 


	2. Chapter 2

**~*~*~*~*~***

The slow decline of Castiel’s life started two years and seven months ago and involved a cryptic text and a late lunch. 

\---

Actually, it probably started thirty years ago, when Powers first started manifesting in certain members of the populace. The emergence of these individuals (Supers as they were eventually called, due to similarities to the superheroes populating comic books and movie screens) caused suspicion, delight, and outright fear amongst the population. The government immediately mobilized to investigate and, if need be, destroy these individuals. 

A DNA inspection of the affected individuals revealed mutations and inconsistencies in the sequences. These inconsistencies weren’t enough to cause problems, but they were apparently enough to cause such powers as the ability to fly, mind-reading, super-strength, super-speed, and accelerated healing. Each Super was different, but as more and more were identified, the government developed a method for handling them. 

They employed them. 

Each Super was offered a lucrative government contract on the condition that they protect their home base. In return, they would receive a hefty government salary. 

Nothing ever comes for free. As many Supers came to realize, there were dozens of invisible strings attached to the offer: the lack of personal life, the pimping out of their private lives, the inevitable decline of their morals, and the willingness of the government to shove their former darlings under the bus at the first sight of wrongdoing. Then there were the stories of Supers who refused to take the government contract, whispered through deserted hallways: families and friends vanished, a black van peeling out of a driveway, people driven into hiding and worse. 

Thirty years ago, the world changed, and while Dean knows the history of Supers, he never thought he would come into contact with one. What Super would be caught in Kansas? What was there to protect, save for ears of corn and a few sad cattle? 

\---

Maybe everything began when Dean Winchester took the last empty seat next to Castiel Novak in a freshman philosophy course. 

Dean holds no particular love for philosophy; he just needs an elective and this course had the dual benefits of looking interesting enough to keep him from tearing his hair out in boredom as well as the reasonable start time of 2:30pm. Unfortunately, it looks like Dean isn’t the only freshman to arrive at this conclusion, as there’s only one remaining seat when Dean rushes into the lecture hall at 2:28pm. There’s another contender for the seat: a blonde girl who enters from the opposite end of the hall. Their eyes meet, and they both rush for the seat at the same time. Unfortunately for Blondie, Dean has the longer stride and the shorter distance. 

Dean’s ass hits the seat, and he sighs in relief before taking out a notebook and pen. Even without the struggle for the last seat, he’s jittery before class, and the small routine helps to calm him. 

“You made her mad.” 

The low voice breaks through Dean’s pre-class panic, and he turns to look at the speaker. He has to fight the knee-jerk reaction of his jaw dropping because…  _ Damn.  _

He doesn’t quite have a handle on this whole bisexual thing yet (it was only after downing a six-pack that he was able to confess to Charlie, the first friend he’d made on campus, that he sometimes thought guys were hot), but if he did have a handle on it, then this guy would be right at the top of his wishlist. Messy, dark hair? Check. Sharp, stubbled jawline? Check. Enormous blue eyes blink at Dean, waiting for his response. 

“Oh, that girl? Yeah, I think she’s mad because I got the last seat.” Dean shrugs. “Sucks to suck, I guess.” 

Blue Eyes looks at him steadily. “She’s my girlfriend,” he says, no condemnation in his tone. “She was looking forward to us taking this elective together.” 

The Arrow of Shitty Social Encounters rips through Dean and leaves him bleeding on the floor. He cringes and runs through a list of apologies. Every one sounds worse than the last. 

Blue Eyes puts him out of his misery. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. April’s very adept at engineering solutions.” 

Sure enough, when Dean looks back over his shoulder, he sees that the blonde, April, has already found a chair from outside in the hallway and dragged it into the lecture hall. Perched in front of the exit, she’s a fire hazard, but when the professor comes into the room, he barely gives her a second glance. Dean can  _ feel  _ her triumphant smirk against the back of his neck, and he steadfastly ignores her, the same way he’s trying to ignore Blue Eyes next to him. 

Maybe that’s how it starts. 

\---

Or maybe it starts during one Philosophy class, when their professor opened up the floor for debate on the topic of free will. 

Though the class doesn’t immediately divide into clear camps, after a few minutes it’s obvious where the lines have been drawn. There are those who argue that free will is nothing more than an illusion: the choices have already been made, and humans are nothing more than lab rats running through a maze which was always rigged. Then there are those who argue that every choice has merit: from something as simple as choosing their breakfast to something as momentous as who to marry or where to live. 

Dean falls into the latter category, along with half the class. The rest fall into the latter category. 

And then there’s April, who argues that God predetermines everyone’s fate. People, she says, are meant to find each other according to the Lord’s will. There’s never any doubt of the righteousness of love, because it’s God’s hands moving them around. She stares meaningfully at Castiel while she says it, and there’s no doubt in Dean’s mind that this is a deeper message. 

The one member of the class who remains silent is Castiel (it took Dean three classes before he dared to ask Blue Eye’s name, and he couldn’t be more thrilled with his discovery). His only contribution comes after April finishes speaking, and it comes in the form of a low, gruff chuckle. Their professor, noting a sign of interest from the normally reticent Castiel, immediately seizes the opportunity. 

“Castiel, was there something you wanted to add?” he asks. The tone of his voice insinuates that it’s in Castiel’s best interests to have something to add. “What are your thoughts on the idea of freedom?” 

Castiel twirls a pen through his fingers. The gesture looks insouciant, but the deep furrow in Castiel’s forehead speaks to intent concentration. After another moment’s thought, Castiel speaks. 

“Freedom,” he says in the deep voice that never fails to send a thrill of delight down Dean’s spine, “is a length of rope.” His eyes dart to April, whose face is turning a delicate shade of puce. “And God wants you to hang yourself with it.” 

\---

Maybe it starts when Castiel comes across Dean in the library and, instead of picking a different table, settles himself in the chair next to Dean. Not a word is spoken between the two of them for over an hour, but it’s a comfortable silence. At the end, Castiel stands up and fixes Dean with those luminous blue eyes. “See you in class, Dean,” he says, and somehow, he makes it sound like a promise. 

Maybe it starts when Dean invites Castiel over for a movie night with himself, Charlie, and Benny, and Castiel actually shows up. That night is the first time Dean sees Castiel really laugh. Previously, Dean’s only heard sardonic little huffs of breath, but this is a genuine laugh that rolls out of Castiel’s belly and fills the room. 

Maybe it starts the next semester when Dean walks into Philosophy 102 to find Castiel sitting with an empty desk beside him. Dean neatly slides into it before anyone else can and tries not to look pathetically eager over it. He looks at Castiel, pretending to a level of cool and sophistication that he’ll never reach. “No girlfriend?” 

Castiel shrugs. The gesture looks easy, but Dean sees the effort behind it. “She’s decided that Philosophy isn’t her thing,” is all he replies. 

\---

Maybe it starts when Dean gets the news that Castiel is in the hospital, and he drops everything to see him. 

Dean rushes through the identical, sterilized halls. His pulse roars in his ears while his heart attempts to jump through his throat. The call from Cas had come while he was in the library, and he’d left his things on the table with a hurried request to the librarian to watch them. He hopes that no one steals his laptop, but at the moment, he really doesn’t care. 

He finds Room 416 and taps on the door. That piece of civility accomplished, he doesn’t wait for a reply before he lets himself in. Lying on the bed and dressed in an ugly hospital gown is Castiel. He looks a little paler than usual, but overall, he’s not hovering an inch away from death’s doorstep, as Dean feared. 

Cas’ eyes light on him. Their normal brightness is dulled by medication, but he’s still lucid. “Dean,” he says thickly. “I just wanted you to inform my professors that I wouldn’t be in class tomorrow. I didn’t expect you to show up.” 

“Maybe you’re not clear about how this friendship thing works. When someone tries to open a hole in you, I come running.” Dean flicks his eyes over Cas. “You look like shit.” 

Cas laughs, then winces. His hand ghosts over his side. “Well, when I got here, the beautician had already gone home for the door. All that was left was the surgeon.” 

Castiel’s words cast a pall on the room. The humor of the situation fades as the reality sets in. Dean sits heavily in the plastic chair next to Cas’ bed, feeling suddenly like his legs are too weak to hold him up. 

“Fuck,” he says, burying his face into his hands. “You could have  _ died.”  _

Dean looks up to meet Cas’ nonplussed look. “I didn’t. In fact, the doctors say that I’m probably not even going to have much of a scar, which is kind of a letdown. What’s the point of getting stabbed if you can’t even show off your scar?” 

_ “Cas,”  _ Dean says, desperation clinging to the edges of his voice. He’s had cause to complain about Cas’ sense of humor before, but now more than ever it’s inappropriate, with Cas sporting one more hole in his body than he woke up with. “You were  _ stabbed.”  _

Cas tries to shrug before he realizes that level of mobility is currently lost to him. “Admittedly it was an overreaction on April’s part. I wasn’t aware that our relationship was that extraordinary.” Amazingly, he looks a little put-out. “If I’d known it was the heights of Shakespearean tragedy, I would have put more effort into it.” 

A helpless burble of laughter escapes. “April  _ stabbed  _ you,” he repeats. 

“Only a little.” 

Dean glares. Cas meets his gaze, looking infuriatingly calm. Dean points accusingly at Cas’ middle. “Thirteen stitches.” 

“While I’ll admit that grabbing a butcher’s knife and swinging away upon hearing that a romantic relationship has ended isn’t the best of decisions, it could have been a lot worse. April was arrested, and the officers assure me that she’ll be spending some time in a prison.” 

“Jesus, Cas, do you really not… I mean…” Dean gestures wildly at him. 

“Dean, why is this bothering you so much?” Cas seems genuinely perplexed. “I’m fine. There were no complications from surgery, and the person responsible will be punished, so there’s a low likelihood of this happening again. If anything, I should be the one upset, so why are you?” 

For a moment, incandescent rage fills Dean, but then he realizes that there’s only curiosity in Castiel’s voice. He’s not mocking. He doesn’t know about mothers who died in freak house fires or fathers who were too drunk to drive and wrapped their cars around trees. He doesn’t know about the horror of having a person ripped away without warning. He doesn’t know about the yawning, aching emptiness that exists when Death reaches into a person’s life. 

“You’re not allowed to die,” bursts out of Dean’s lips. 

Castiel blinks. 

“Well, I’m not entirely sure about the metaphysics of it, but I’m certain that at some point, that decision won’t be up to me.” 

“You know what I mean,” Dean not quite begs. “It’s just… You’re not allowed to die.” 

“Okay.” All joking laid aside, Cas is serious when he reaches out and takes Dean’s hand in his. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

If Dean weren’t so focused on the idea that Cas had just been  _ stabbed  _ by April Kelly, his ex-girlfriend, after he told her they should break up, then he would have realized that this isn’t what people do. Friends don’t drag out promises from other friends that they won’t die. Guys definitely don’t hold other guy’s hands. They don’t slowly collapse in mingled exhaustion and relief while the stabbed party awkwardly reaches over and pats at the top of their head. In the back of his mind, Dean is aware of all of this, but he’s also equally aware of the fact that he doesn’t care. 

So maybe it starts in a hospital room. 

  
  


\---

  
  


It doesn’t start when Dean asks, in a truly unimpressive amount of stuttering and stammering, for Cas to get an off-campus apartment with him, Benny, and Garth. He has a whole proposition worked out, including rent amounts and commute times, but he only makes it through half of it before Cas agrees.

  
“Sure, that sounds fine.” When Dean doesn’t respond, Cas offers him a smile and a clap on the shoulder before returning back to his book. 

Dean stares at him for a moment, nonplussed. He feels a little cheated that he never got to use his fabulous arguments, but also elated that Cas agreed so quickly and effortlessly. Any hint of ire disappears in an instant, however, when Cas lifts his eyes up from the book he’s reading. He gives Dean a tiny smile, and suddenly, all that matters is that Dean will get to see that smile every morning. 

\---

It doesn’t begin when Dean and Castiel graduate from college and decide, without ever really talking about it, to continue their roommate arrangement. If he was asked, then Dean would cite housing costs, the need to save money so he can get his Master’s degree, or the reduction in chores as his reason to keep rooming with Cas, but no one ever asks. Charlie and Sam treat it as a matter of fact that he and Cas would continue living together, and Dean’s so grateful for the lack of questioning that he doesn’t bother to think about why they would think that. 

He and Cas move in together, and it’s exactly the same as it was in college, except this time, there’s not Benny and Garth to bitch at when things are messy, there’s just Cas. Cas is a fucking  _ slob,  _ and it drives Dean crazy to come into the living room and see dirty plates sitting on the coffee table. Meanwhile, Dean’s need to play music through every waking moment sparks more than one irritable comment from Cas, but somehow, they manage to make it work. 

Their routine becomes so comfortable, so ingrained, that when it comes crashing down around them, it comes as a complete surprise. 

\---

Maybe, for Dean, it starts one Thursday morning. 

He and Cas have been living together for five years. He’s finished his Master’s degree and internships, and he’s now working as junior staff in a counselor’s office. His long climb to the top of his career, which started back in undergrad, is almost complete. Now that he’s at the top, he can see what’s missing. 

Cas. The thing he’s missing is Cas. 

The thought festers through the work day, and then through the night. The next day is Dean’s day off, but Cas has to work, which leaves Dean alone in the apartment with nothing but his thoughts clanging around his head. He starts to type up some case notes just to keep his mind occupied, but the thought lurks. It’s at the corner of his thoughts; try and face it head on and it disappears. 

Sometimes, Cas will look at him, and Dean is almost convinced that he’s about to be kissed. It’s not wishful thinking; Cas has looked at his lips  _ way  _ more than someone with purely platonic interest would. For the past two years, Dean has felt like they’re hovering on the edges of something amazing, but they always fall short just before they can achieve it. 

He wants to take that final step. He wants to walk off the edge of that cliff and see if Cas will catch him. It’s a huge risk, but Cas is worth it. Cas is… Cas is everything to him. 

Before Dean can overthink it or talk himself out of it, he grabs his phone. With trembling fingers, he types out a text to Cas. 

**_hey can we talk tonight? nothing’s wrong i just wanna talk_ **

An answer flashes on his screen a few seconds later. 

**_Yes, that would be fine. I should be home around six. Do you want me to pick anything up?_ **

**_nah, i’ll make burgers. see you then._ **

Dean sets his phone aside. His heart is beating a wild tempo in his chest, but there’s a strange sense of relief. No matter what happens tonight, at least he’ll  _ know,  _ one way or the other. 

It’s started. 

\---

For Castiel Novak, fate intervenes that Thursday afternoon. 

After he gets Dean’s cryptic text, he’s useless for the rest of the morning. He reads and rereads the message at least ten times until he has it memorized. It looks innocuous enough, but he can’t stop thinking about it. 

_ Can we talk tonight?  _

In Castiel’s experience, those words are never followed by anything good. His father had said  _ Can we talk  _ just before telling him that his mother was uncomfortable with his ‘lifestyle choices’ and suggesting that it might be prudent to avoid family gatherings from here on out. Bart, his one attempt at a relationship after April, said  _ Can we talk  _ right before he broke up with him. 

(That had been an interesting time, as Bart had seemed to think that he was irreparably damaging Castiel’s life by ending their four month relationship. He’d patted Castiel’s shoulder in consolation, clearly waiting for Castiel to break to pieces, but all Castiel had managed to think was  _ Oh, thank God.  _ Bart had been his last attempt at a relationship. After him came school, and then the pressures of the real world: bills, student loans, the eternal debate between him and Dean as to who drank the last of the milk and put the empty jug back into the refrigerator. There had been no time to even consider dating again. 

There’s another reason he hasn’t been seeking a relationship, but he’s not going to think about that. Not when all signs point so firmly towards  _ No.)  _

“Would you take your break?” Anna finally asks. She’s the senior librarian, and the one Castiel most enjoys working with. She levels a calm gaze at him over the rim of her glasses as she tosses her hair back over her shoulder. “You’ve been staring at your phone all morning. Go get some lunch.” 

“I’m sorry,’ Castiel apologizes. To call their library understaffed would hyperbolic in the extreme, which means that anyone ducking work significantly hurts everyone else. “I got a message from Dean, and…” 

“Oh, you got a message from  _ Dean,  _ huh?” Anna’s grin is devilish as she begins checking in a stack of books. “Big plans for tonight?” 

Castiel lifts one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “He says that he wants to  _ talk. _ What does that mean?” He swallows and then voices the concern which has sat in the back of his mind for most of the morning. “What if… What if he wants me to move out?” 

Anna stares at him for a moment. “Castiel, you’re one of the smartest guys that I know, but sometimes you’re really stupid.” Before Castiel can protest, she waves her hand in a clear dismissal. “Go get lunch. Pick me up a salad, would you?” 

The tone of Anna’s voice leaves no room for argument, and Castiel doesn’t waste his time. He grabs his coat before he leaves the library, tucking it around him. Dean says that it makes him look like a flasher, but Castiel finds comfort in its shapeless bulk. 

The walk to his favorite cafe is short, and it’s early enough in the day for him to avoid the majority of the lunch crowd. The girl behind the counter smiles as she hands over the bag containing his and Anna’s food. Castiel absently returns the gesture. Despite Anna’s words, he’s still thinking about the possible reasons behind Dean’s message. 

Anna’s probably right: Dean isn’t kicking him out. He and Dean haven’t been bickering any more than usual, and he would assume that there would have to be a good reason for Dean to kick away a low monthly rent. Having eliminated that possibility, however, he’s forced to wonder what else Dean could want to talk about. There are infinite possibilities. Castiel refuses to contemplate the tiny hope flickering in the pit of his stomach. If Dean wanted  _ that  _ from him, then he would have spoken up before now. 

His thoughts are still traveling in their circular pattern as he makes his way down the sidewalk. He’s so deep in thought that he doesn’t notice the blonde woman walking towards him until her shoulder collides with his. A sharp bolt of pain jolts through his arm, beginning at his shoulder and traveling all the way down to his fingertips. For a second, his arm goes completely numb, and then it regains normal function like nothing ever happened. Indignant and angry, Castiel whips his head around to catch sight of the woman, but she’s already disappeared. He rolls his eyes as he makes his way to the crosswalk. He glances to check the oncoming traffic and freezes. 

A small child, no more than five years old, stumbles off of the sidewalk and sprawls into the road. Less than ten yards away, a truck bears down on the child. There’s no room for them to swerve, and even though Castiel can hear the brakes squealing and smell the rubber burning against the pavement, there’s not room enough left for it to matter. No one is close enough to avert disaster, including Castiel himself. Helpless terror fills him, along with the desire for him to  _ do  _ something, but there’s nothing he can--

One second, Castiel is standing on the sidewalk watching a disaster unfold. The next second, he’s in the middle of the road, wrapping his arms around the child. A car horn blares, and on instinct, Castiel sticks his hand out. There’s a brief sensation of pressure against his palm, and then Castiel is back on the sidewalk, except this time he has a crying child in his arms. 

Time freezes and deadly silence hangs over the scene. The child blinks up at Castiel. Glassy tears well and spill from his eyes, and he takes a deep breath and begins to wail. Time picks back up at double pace as if to make up for its pause. 

A woman rushes up to Castiel and yanks the child from his arms. Numb, Castiel lets him go. He’s too busy trying to fill in the gaps in his own perception. Less than three seconds have passed, but it feels like a lifetime. 

Voices crowd around him. Individual words overlap into a cacophony of noise that threatens to split his skull open. All of them demand to know how he saved the child, and what he is, and who he is. Castiel’s eyes slide to the road, looking for answers, but all he finds are more questions. All he sees in the road is just a truck, with the front grill caved in around one single point of impact. 

Castiel remembers throwing out his hand and the strange moment of pressure which surrounded it. He looks down at his own hands, hoping that they’ll hold at least a kernel of truth to solve this mystery, but the moment he looks down at his hands, he recoils in shock. His skin is glowing a soft blue, interspersed with tiny white sparks. Castiel runs a tentative finger over his wrist, half-expecting to be shocked, but nothing happens. 

The noise of the crowd is steadily increasing. It presses along Castiel, but that wouldn’t explain the weight on his back. Castiel cranes his head to look over his shoulder but finds that his view is blocked by… feathers? He shifts his shoulders to dislodge the weight, and the feathers ruffle. No matter how he moves, the feathers follow him. Then Castiel catches a glimpse of his reflection in the grill of a car. 

Terror billows in his chest as he stares at the two huge wings sprouting from his back. He blinks, trying to deny the truth of it, but it’s impossible. Somehow, he has  _ wings.  _ As Castiel watches, they flare wide, like they’re trying to protect him. 

“What the…” His stomach churns. The crowd presses in close around him. Their voices tumble over each other as they demand answers which he doesn’t have. A particularly bold hand sneaks through the mass of people to grab at once of his wings, and Castiel jerks back as though he’s been burned. 

He can’t stay here. With nothing more than the need for escape fueling him, Castiel shoves through the crowd. Their hands grab at him, pulling buttons off his cardigan, and plucking at the feathers along his back. Blind fear grips him, and Castiel starts to run down the sidewalk. The crowd follows him, their questions slicing through the air to cut into his skin. The need for escape pumps through his blood, the spark increasing into an inferno. He needs to get away, he needs to get to safety, he needs… 

Castiel’s chest grows tight. It feels like there’s something swelling within him, like a wave cresting. Power rushes through him, and Castiel rides the buoyant wave. Gravity no longer applies to him, and he feels like he could lift the whole world if only he could figure out how to wrap his arms around it. Acting on instinct, Castiel seizes the power rushing through him, and the world shrinks and bends around him. He’s screaming, he’s falling, he’s flying--

And then, in the space between one second and the next, Castiel finds himself in his kitchen. After the chaos of the street, the apartment feels almost unnaturally quiet. His breaths are obscenely loud in the small space, and he thinks that it’s a miracle that the power rushing through his skin doesn’t shatter windows and glass. 

It’s a split second between his arriving in the apartment, and his looking up to meet Dean’s eyes. Dean is standing less than three feet away from him. His eyes are wide in surprise and maybe even a little bit of fear. 

“Dean,” Castiel croaks, desperate for Dean to say something to make everything normal, to make  _ him  _ normal… 

The plate Dean was holding, full of juicy burgers seared to perfection, slips from his hands. Distantly, Castiel hears it shatter against the floor. 

\---

This is how it ends. 

The plate falls from Dean’s hands and breaks into a thousand tiny pieces against the floor. His surprise comes not entirely from Cas’ sudden and unexplained appearance in the kitchen but also because he’s  _ glowing.  _ Soft blue light rises from his skin, concentrating in a halo of light around his head. Cas’ eyes, always bright, shine with otherworldly white light. 

The only thing that doesn’t fit is the stricken expression on Cas’ face. “Dean,” he says, eyes wide in lost, helpless, desperate terror. “Dean, I don’t…” 

Dean’s seen enough documentaries and read enough comics to understand what’s happening, but part of him still refuses to believe it. Cas isn’t a Super. Cas is the dorky guy who once wore a sweater vest with an enamel bee pin. He collects novelty mugs with terrible puns and can’t function without two cups of coffee in the morning. Cas isn’t built for war and action; Cas once spent fifteen minutes lecturing Dean for accidentally spilling cocoa on one of his books. 

But Cas is  _ glowing  _ and has fucking  _ wings,  _ and Dean isn’t stupid. He knows. 

This is how it ends. 

Four hours later, the men in black come to their apartment. It’s possible that it took them that long to hunt Cas down. It’s possible that they possess a finely honed sense of cruelty and take that long to allow time for panic to set in. Either way, they show up with a smarmy Brit leading them. That’s how Dean meets, and immediately decides that he loathes, Balthazar Roche. Within seconds of them entering the apartment, Castiel is whisked away, and it’s three days before Dean sees him again. 

In that time, Dean will get to read all about Cas’ powers. Turns out that those wings aren’t useless: Cas can fly (Cas insists that the actual process is closer to teleportation, but apparently the newspapers like the way  _ flight  _ looks on the page), along with increased strength and speed. Cas also is nigh invulnerable (Dean screams the first time he sees someone unload a full magazine into Cas’ chest on TV), and possesses the ability to heal himself and others. If Cas concentrates, he has what he calls ‘smiting’ ability: concentrated light and energy gather in his hand, capable of destroying almost anything in its path. 

Castiel is given the name ‘Seraph’. The name stems largely, Dean assumes, from the huge wings that sprout from his back and the halo of light which surrounds his head when he uses his powers. It helps that ‘Castiel’ is an angelic name, a fact on which the papers and bloggers pounce when they describe the latest Super. 

When Castiel comes home, his eyes are bruised and his face haggard. He moves like he’s been beaten, and it takes him about five minutes to lower himself to the couch. Dean wordlessly passes him a beer, and Cas clutches it like a lifeline. 

They drink in silence for a few minutes, and then Cas starts to talk. His voice is wooden as he explains the new safety precautions which will govern their lives. All Supers are required to disclose their identities, which means that their loved ones can come into the line of fire. The panic button he hands Dean feels like a flimsy defense in the face of the potential threats Castiel might be facing, but Dean clutches onto it nonetheless. 

“I’m giving one to Sam and Eileen as well. I hold the counterpart that’s connected to the rest. If you feel like you’re in danger, all you have to do is press that button, and no matter what, I’ll come to you.” 

“What if I’m on the toilet?” Dean asks, trying to lighten the mood. 

Cas’ eyes turn dark and his eyebrows knit together. “Keep it on you at  _ all  _ times,” he stresses. He darts his gaze to the side, relieving Dean from the burden of his gaze. “Dean, I know that this is… I  _ hate  _ that this is happening, but you have to believe me. I’d  _ never  _ let you get hurt.” 

Dean doesn’t know how to tell Cas, motionless on the couch like the act of moving would shatter him, that there are different ways to hurt. 

\---

They never have burgers. Or the talk. 

\---

Their lives don’t exactly change overnight, but it’s close enough that the description isn’t hyperbolic. Cas quits his job at the public library: the small location is overwhelmed by the attention from the press, and the continuous stream of reporters discourages patrons. Instead, Cas’ government contacts secure him a job at the local university library. The university position is more prestigious, and after the first day, campus police manage to sufficiently discourage the errant reporter, but Dean misses hearing Cas read to the kids. 

The next change comes when Balthazar visits their apartment. He spends his entire entire time there with the look on his face that suggests that there’s something nasty-smelling just under his nose. “This is where you live?” he asks Castiel, ignoring Dean’s presence entirely. “Darling, this won’t do at all.” 

Within short order, Dean and Cas are packed up from their cramped apartment and moved into the spacious penthouse. When Dean asks why, he gets the answer  _ Security Reasons.  _ Apparently, Castiel is considered an important commodity, and the government isn’t going to trust a cantankerous deadbolt with his security. In the span of three days, the square footage of Dean’s living space has doubled. He hates it. He hates the rainfall shower, the gas range, and the spacious veranda outside their apartment. 

Mostly, he hates it because he clatters around the huge, luxurious apartment like a lone ball in the worst pinball machine game ever invented. 

Little by little, Cas, the man Dean’s been maybe not-so-secretly in love with for the past five years, drifts away from him. First Balthazar takes him to one event a week, and then it’s two, and then Castiel is a special guest star in his own apartment. There’s also the fact that Cas is always exhausted. Between his work at the library, the revolving door of parties and galas he attends, and patrolling the city at night to keep it safe, he barely has any time to sleep, let alone enjoy a social life. 

Sam asks about Cas once in the first year. It’s his first time in the new apartment, and he’s touching the different features like he’s afraid he’ll break them. He pauses in front of the framed photo which Balthazar gave Castiel. It shows Castiel in his Super suit, and Dean hates it. The colors are garish, and the different touches turn Castiel’s familiar faces into that of a stranger’s. Sam keeps his own opinions to himself, but his mouth does twist down in a frown. “I haven’t seen you and Cas around lately,” he finally says, too carefully to be casual. 

Dean shrugs. Thanks to Castiel’s newfound contacts, plus his reduced burden of rent, he’s finally been able to open up his own practice. It’s a major achievement that usually takes years to make, and he should be happy. He  _ is  _ happy. He’s finally able to run his own counseling practice, his own way, and he knows it’ll help him better serve his clients. But he can’t help but think on it with a little bitterness. It’s not as though he wholly earned it.

No matter how he came by his practice, the fact remains that his workload has quadrupled in the past few months, leading to a dramatic reduction in his amount of free time. He reminds Sam of this. “I’ve got the practice and Cas has his Super shit. It keeps us busy.” 

Sam hums, in the careful, noncommittal way that he does when he’s thinking something that he knows Dean isn’t going to want to hear. “Is Cas happy?” he asks suddenly. 

The question strikes right at Dean. It’s been two days since he’s seen Cas in the apartment, and the last time he saw him, Cas had looked better. He was moving in the slow, delicate way that he did after he’d sustained some injuries in a fight, yet he’d refused to let Dean call him in sick to work. He’d just mustered up a thin smile, thanked Dean, and retreated to his room. 

The last time Dean saw Cas in general, however, was an hour ago, when he was scrolling through his news feed. The picture showed Cas at a party, sandwiched between two attractive women. A flute of champagne dangled carelessly from his fingers, and his mouth was split wide in a smile. It was impossible to tell what he was really thinking because his eyes were covered by a large pair of aviator sunglasses. They turned Cas into someone that Dean would hate on sight. 

“He’s having a great time,” Dean says. 

\---

It ends with Dean alone in the apartment and falling asleep on the couch and with Cas fleeing from a contract-mandated event. It ends before it could ever start, and that’s the true tragedy of it all.

**~*~*~*~*~***


	3. Chapter 3

**~*~*~*~*~***

Dean wakes up with the sun in his face and a crick in his neck. He winces when he sits up and his back crackles in protest. A muscle in his lower back twinges in warning and Dean freezes. It takes him a few seconds to work out the kink, which leaves him plenty of time to survey the minor wreckage of the apartment. 

The dirty plate is still on the coffee table where he left it. A few remnants of his dinner are still on the edges of the plate and clinging to the stainless steel of the fork, along with a fine patina of his spit. In the thin, grey light of morning, it looks pathetic and almost grotesque. 

It takes Dean ten minutes to stand up, or so it feels like. The expanse from the living room to the kitchen feels like it stretches into miles. It takes almost all of his strength to make the trip and put the plate in the sink, but somehow he manages it. 

Afterward, he spends a good five minutes staring at the counter. He knows he should make a pot of coffee. He knows he should eat. He should shower, he should brush his teeth, and he should get dressed. He knows that he should do these things; he spends a good portion of his week talking his clients through performing these tasks every day. But he can’t drag himself away from staring at a tiny imperfection in the countertop. 

The distant sound of his phone alarm going off forces Dean to move. He walks back to the couch and turns off the alarm. Silence descends abruptly. Without the tinny jangle, the apartment yawns wider. Not even the sun peeking through the windows can make the space seem more welcoming. 

A notification for his email pops up on the phone screen. Dean skims it, and then carefully ignores it. His realtor promised him that he didn’t have to have an answer until the end of the week. However, even with the notification gone, guilt still squirms in Dean’s gut. Somehow, he knows he’s doing something wrong. If he wasn’t, then he wouldn’t have done his browsing in incognito mode. He wouldn’t have contacted a realtor and made up dozens of half-assed excuses for when he disappeared, just in case Cas asked where he was going (Cas was never around to ask). Together, he and his realtor found a nice, three-bedroom house on the outskirts of the city. It’s a little bit of a fixer-upper, but Dean has weekends, a good work-ethic, and enough knowledge cobbled together from experience to fix most problems. 

And he never told Cas that he was even looking. 

Dean doesn’t even know how he would have started that conversation. Acknowledging that is a knife twisting in his chest. Cas is his closest friend. Other than Sam, no one else knows him as well, and Dean has told Cas things he would never dream of telling Sam. To look in the mirror and realize he doesn’t want to live with Cas anymore, and not know how to break that news to him is a wound that Dean hasn’t recovered from yet. Dean tucks his phone in his pocket, where it can’t taunt him with the knowledge of unread emails, and returns to the kitchen. 

Completing the mundane chores of the morning gives Dean enough time to pretend to be a functioning member of society. After the coffee has finished brewing, he pours a mug for himself. The other mug in the cabinet glares reproachfully at him. After a moment, Dean walks through the living room, down the hallway, to stand in front of Cas’ door. 

Without thinking too much about his actions, he raps on the door before pushing it open. Never one for mornings, Cas is dead to the world. His face is buried in his pillow, and he doesn’t bother to look up when Dean sticks his head into his room. 

“Cas,” Dean says, then repeats himself when he gets no reaction. At the third call of his name, a single arm emerges from under the blankets. “If you want coffee, you’re going to have to get out of bed.” 

He doesn’t engage beyond that, but as he walks back down the hall, he hears Cas stirring. By the time Cas actually makes it out to the kitchen, Dean’s already halfway through a bagel. Cas grunts at him and makes a beeline towards the coffeemaker. One hand fumbles at a banana, and Dean watches as Cas tries to simultaneously drink his coffee and open the skin. 

His heart warms to see Castiel’s struggle. Moments like these are why he hasn’t moved out yet: these pure, delightful times when Cas forgets that he’s a Super and powerful enough to stop a car with his bare hand. Right now, with his hair rumpled and his shirt on inside-out, the person in the kitchen is just Cas, the dorky guy Dean met in college. Times like these, Cas is so human that it makes Dean want to wrap him in a blanket and hold him close. 

Dean waits until he judges that Cas has finished approximately half his mug before he asks, “You have any plans tonight?” 

A half-cocked notion flows through his head. Maybe he and Cas can watch a movie tonight. Dean can make popcorn: not the crappy, microwave popcorn that comes in greasy bags, but real, buttery stovetop popcorn. They could bicker over what to watch and waste time trying to get the most comfortable spot on the couch. For two hours, he and Cas could transport themselves back to the past, where the biggest worries they had were trying to make rent and figure out what to add to their ramen to make it more palatable. Dean could indulge himself in pretending that he and Cas were leading different lives, and that maybe if he leaned in close enough and tilted his head at just the right angle, he could finally discover what Cas’ lips taste like. 

Cas grunts and glares at the bottom of his coffee mug like it’s personally offended him. “Balthazar has made plans for me to attend an event tonight.” 

The hazy vision of their future evening disappears as though it had never existed. In its place, a cold, bleak picture takes its place: another night spent alone in the apartment, falling asleep on the couch and eating lukewarm leftovers. Dean feels hurt, which is absurd: in order to be hurt, he would have had to have expectations for Castiel in the first place. 

“That’s what, the third one this week?” Dean makes sure he’s not looking at Cas when he asks, “Do you even bother patrolling anymore? That was kind of the point of this whole Super gig, right?” 

Even without looking at Castiel, Dean can  _ feel  _ him bristling. “Attending these functions fulfills an important part--” 

Unable to maintain the pantomime of disinterest, Dean whirls around to look at Castiel. His knuckles are white around the handle of his mug. If he clutches it any tighter, he’ll break the damn thing. “You know,” he says, barreling forward despite the warning bells in the back of his head blaring  _ Danger Dean Winchester, Danger, Danger,  _ “it would be easier for me to swallow any of this shit if I thought you actually believed it.” 

Cas’ mouth presses into a thin line. His normally tan skin is pale, save for two spots of color high on his cheeks. “The contract--” 

“Oh, fuck the stupid contract,” Dean snaps. “Don’t pretend like you’re not enjoying it. The parties that Balthazar drags you to, the people fawning over you. I see you on TV, you know. You certainly don’t look like someone is twisting your arm to be there.” 

Cas sets his mug down with exaggerated care. His caution is a hard-learned skill. A few months after getting his powers, Castiel had slammed his fist down on the counter in frustration. The granite had cracked under his fist, and Dean hadn’t let him forget about it for weeks. Now, the ceramic barely makes a sound when it settles on the countertop. 

“I have to get ready for work,” Cas finally says. Without another word, he sweeps out of the kitchen. Dean watches him go. He wants to call after Cas, but when he tries to think of something to say, his head is empty and his tongue is blank. 

Cas’ banana sits forgotten on the counter. Dean stares at it for a second, feeling irrationally angry at the sight, before he places it back in the fruit basket. He puts his and Cas’ mug into the sink and goes to his room to get ready for work. 

Cas’ door remains resolutely closed, and Dean doesn’t bother to knock on it before he leaves for the day. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Castiel didn’t want to admit it to Dean earlier, but sometimes he doesn’t know what parties he’s going to, or why. Tonight is one of those times. He knows this event isn’t a benefit gala like the previous night. The lights are too low and the crowd is too anonymous. No one here is concerned about charity. This is the kind of place where people come to get lost, not to show off. If Castiel were to guess, then he would say that someone bribed Balthazar for his presence here: at some point tonight, he’s going to be photographed, and then his image will be used to promote the venue. 

It’s not the first time this has happened, though every time that it does, he leaves feeling violated and cheap. He’s raised his objections to Balthazar, whose reaction consists of shrugging and reminding him of the parameters of his government contract and what would happen were he to deviate from them. It never takes more than a few sharp tugs of his leash before Castiel meekly falls back into line. 

Tonight’s event is held in a small, close environment. Balthazar didn’t bother to say the name of the place, but Castiel guesses that it’s a new club. There was a man at the door, but bouncers are the worries of other people. Castiel and Balthazar walked straight in, and almost immediately, Balthazar left him to go do whatever Balthazar does in places like this. 

Castiel stands on the catwalk overlooking the dance floor and looks down below him. Bodies crowd together on the dance floor in a singular, frenetic mass. From above, Castiel gets the impression of a roiling, seething ocean. Music pounds through the speakers, not so much melodious as it is a continuous, pulsing beat. Castiel’s heart increases to match the pace of the music, until his very bones are throbbing with the bass. Neon lights perform a frantic dance over the heads of the dancers. Between the sound and the light, Castiel’s senses are under assault. Even when he closes his eyes, the lights manage to sear through his eyelids, and the music pounds mercilessly against his skull. Castiel can’t take it anymore. If he’s going to stay here, he needs a drink. Alcohol is the only way he can dull his senses enough to keep him from going mad. 

Castiel walks down from the catwalk and towards the bar. He manages to find an empty spot and makes eye contact with the bartender. Even through the dim lighting, Castiel knows that he’s been recognized. The bartender’s eyes widen as they sweep over him. Dressed in a white, button-down with the top two buttons undone and a pair of dark pants, Castiel doesn’t look a thing like his Super persona, but his face has been splashed across enough blogs and magazines to be recognizable. 

The bartender leans in close to hear his order. “Whiskey, two fingers, neat,” Castiel shouts. Within moments, the drink finds its way into his hands. Castiel takes a sip. The whiskey is top-shelf and goes down smooth. Only the thought of Dean’s offended face keeps Castiel from finishing the rest of it in a single gulp. He forces himself to drink slowly, savoring the taste and the buzz. When he’s finished, he tosses down $20 and goes hunting. His senses are still screaming, which means he needs something else to take the edge off. Castiel’s metabolism burns through alcohol within minutes, leaving him unable to get the slightest buzz. Thankfully, in a place like this, there are other options. 

It takes Castiel ten minutes of sidling through dark corners to figure out who’s dealing. After that, all it takes is a quick exchange of bills and a vicious glare which commands discretion. Castiel leaves with three pills clutched in his sweaty palm. He dry-swallows the pills, wincing when they scrape at his throat on the way down. He takes a deep breath and tries to find a quiet enough place where he can wait while the pills kick in. 

He  _ hates  _ these events. By now, he’s lost track of how many times he’s voiced his displeasure to Balthazar, not that it ever seems to do any good. Balthazar ignores him and continues to trot him out to these openings. Every time Castiel complains, Balthazar will cite the requirements of his contract while hinting darkly at what will happen if he doesn’t fulfill them. 

Castiel’s head starts to spin as the pills work through his bloodstream. He forgoes the search for a place to sit and settles for leaning against the wall as the lights start to twist and spiral. Longing twists at his chest until he’s sick with it. He doesn’t want to be in this cramped club. He wants to go home and curl up on the couch with a book and pretend to ignore whatever Dean’s watching. He wants that so much he can almost taste it, but instead he’s here. 

Castiel opens his eyes. The lancing arcs of neon smear together in a riot of color, like an oil slick on a wet floor. Castiel inhales, and the room inhales with him. 

If Dean were here, he would be furious. Somewhere, deep in the depths of his own mind, Castiel is furious with himself. Once upon a time, in another life, the worst thing Castiel had ever done was split a joint with Dean over a campfire. But that was a long time ago. Now, the only way he can stomach the lights, the noise, and the bodies pressed in around him like they want to bury him is by numbing his senses almost beyond reason. 

Castiel blinks, and a face swims into focus in front of him. The face is young, female, and attractive. She smiles at him, and Castiel suppresses the urge to recoil. 

“You’re who I think you are, right?” Her small hand presses at the center of Castiel’s chest, burning through his clothes. If he looked down, he’d see a perfect imprint of a palm seared into his chest. 

The woman’s mouth is moving. With effort, Castiel forces himself to listen to her words. 

“--could get out of here, you and me, if you know what I mean?” Her fingers curl into the material of his shirt, and Castiel feels like he’s being strangled. “I think we could have some fun.” 

Castiel’s mouth is dry. He licks at his lips, and the woman tracks the motion with avarice in her eyes. Her fingernails tap against his chest, reminding Castiel of the talons of a predator. 

Castiel blinks again, and when he opens his eyes, Dean’s face shimmers into view in front of his eyes. Not the Dean of the past, laughing and his eyes sparkling, but the Dean of this morning, with his eyes sharp and his voice snappish. There was anger in his tone, but worse than that: there was derision and contempt. Castiel thinks of what Dean would think of him, if he could see him right now. 

Dean would be so disappointed. 

“I can’t.” His intestines squirm like he’s swallowed a handful of snakes, and it’s all Castiel can do to keep himself from vomiting over the woman’s shoes. “I have to go.” 

He escapes the woman and her shark grin and her fingernails poised like claws over his heart. He never makes the decision to leave. One moment he’s inside the claustrophobic club, and the next moment, he’s outside, gasping in the hint of fresh air. The crowd from earlier is gone, leaving just him and the bouncer outside. Castiel straightens and tries to ignore the critical eyes boring a hole in the back of his neck. 

“You’re who I think you are, right?’ the bouncer finally asks. The echo of the woman’s opening sentence is so jarring that Castiel flinches. 

“That depends on who you think I am.” He means to sound flippant, but the words come out weary. Like he’s already been defeated. 

“Seraph.” The bouncer spits out his Super name like a curse. “I knew it was you the second you came swanning in. What the hell are you doing here?” 

Castiel has been fed a number of lines, so many times that he can parrot them back to Balthazar almost verbatim: he’s promoting local businesses, as well as providing a line of safety to the whole city. All of the lines stick in his throat. Whether it’s the pills, or the bouncer’s disdain, something has struck a chord of honesty in him. Castiel shrugs and says, “You know? I really don’t know.” 

Whatever answer the bouncer was hoping for, he doesn’t get it from Castiel. Castiel watches, through hazy eyes, as the bouncer’s shoulders square up in a threatening position. His hands clench into fists at his side, and his eyes flash in anger. “What it looks like to me is that you’ve got a whole damn city to protect, and instead you’re here partying.” 

Castiel tries to force his sluggish brain to concentrate. A dissonance curls loose from the conversation, and he tries to grab at it. Finally, he sees the problem. There’s anger in the bouncer’s voice, but not the indignant anger of a citizen seeing their tax dollars go to waste. This is closer. Personal. 

Castiel blinks as the pieces finally fall into place. “Someone you know was hurt.” 

The bouncer looks away. It’s just for a second, but it tells Castiel everything he needs to know. When he looks back at Castiel, his eyes are blazing. 

“My sister waits tables at a restaurant a few blocks from here. A year ago, she was walking to her car after her shift when she was mugged. She had $23 bucks in tips. The bastard who mugged her took everything and shot her afterward, just because.” 

Castiel absorbs the words like a blow. “I’m sorry.” With his brain still processing, the apology comes out like a reflex. “Did she…” 

“She’s paralyzed from the waist down. She’ll live, but she doesn’t know what to do. She was going to be a dancer. That’s why she was waiting tables. She was trying to put herself through school.” 

Castiel’s head spins with the weight of his own uselessness. He says the only thing he can think of, even though it’s less than nothing in the grand scheme of things. “I’m sorry.” 

The bouncer’s lips pull away from his teeth in a feral snarl. “You’re  _ sorry?  _ A girl’s life is ruined, and you’re  _ sorry?  _ Where were you while she was getting mugged? Out getting high? Where the  _ fuck  _ were you?” 

The pills currently chewing through his system slow Castiel’s reaction time, which means that he doesn’t react when the bouncer grabs his shirt. He slams Castiel into the brick wall behind him, knocking all of the air out of his lungs. Castiel’s skull cracks into the wall, with enough force to damage a normal human. 

“Don’t,” Castiel says, when he sees the bouncer pulling back his arm to deliver a punch. “Please, don’t.” 

“Oh, so you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?” Spittle flies from the bouncer’s mouth to land against Castiel’s face. Castiel doesn’t flinch. HIs metabolism is working through the pills, and clarity is returning. 

“Punching me is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.” Castiel says the words with melancholy. Criminals have broken their hands on his cheeks before. The experience left Castiel desperate, digging his fingers into the skin just to see if he could still feel it. Was he still human? Or was he just marble: cold and perfect, capable of being seen, but incapable of feeling warmth? 

“Oh, Cassie. There you are. I was wondering where you’d gotten to.” 

If Balthazar is surprised at finding Castiel in the clutches of a bouncer, in danger of imminent punching, he hides it well. If anything, he looks mildly impatient. 

“While it looks like you’re having a thrilling night, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut it short. There’s some new information that you’re going to want to hear.” 

The bouncer’s fingers don’t move from where they’re tightly curled in Castiel’s shirt. Tension vibrates through the man’s muscles; every part of him wants nothing more than to turn Castiel’s face into a pulp. Even though he warned the man against hitting him, Castiel almost wishes he would. It would hurt him, but it would be a clean pain, not this ugly, rotten hatred that’s corroding him from the inside out. 

“Mate, let him go.” Balthazar’s voice is hard, all traces of joking vanished. “As I’m sure my friend has already warned you, any attempt of violence against his person is going to hurt you much more than it will him. I’ll also remind you that an act of violence against a Super is a crime punishable by a $2500 fine and at least six months in prison.” 

Balthazar’s words take a second to penetrate through the rage-fueled fog in the bouncer’s brain. When the bouncer finally recognizes the threat, he drops Castiel. Disgust, instead of fear, fuels his actions: it’s the recoil of reaching down to pick up a kitten and instead finding a rotting corpse. 

The bouncer makes a final noise of revulsion and retreats back to the main door of the club. Castiel stares after him. He wants to be able to defend himself, but anything he thinks of saying withers on the tip of his tongue. “Come on, Cassie. We need to go.” Balthazar’s hand settles on his shoulder, and Castiel doesn’t bother arguing as he’s led to the car. 

Balthazar starts to drive through the city streets, and Castiel rests his head against the window. The glass is cool on his overheated forehead. The streetlights blur into a single strip as Balthazar drives them to the outskirts of the city. “I hate nights like tonight,” Castiel finally comments. “Are they really necessary?” 

“In order to fulfill the terms of your contract--” Balthazar begins, but Castiel cuts him off. 

“You know why that guy was upset? He was mad because his sister was shot during a mugging, and he blames me for not being there.” 

“It’s a big city, Cassie. No one expects you to stop every petty crime.” 

“I’m not stopping any crimes right now,” Castiel points out. “Every benefit and party takes away from time that I could be spending patrolling and helping people. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Why else would I have these powers?” 

A strange, strangled sound bursts out of Balthazar’s lips. It takes Castiel a moment to identify it as laughter. Rage pulses through him, and it only becomes worse when Balthazar catches his eye and laughs again.   


“I’m sorry, Cassie. I don’t mean to make fun, but you’re such a  _ librarian _ sometimes. You’ve spent too much time reading fairy tales and  _ Harry Potter  _ whatevers. Good vs. evil is so out of vogue.” 

“Then what  _ am  _ I supposed to be doing, if not helping people?” 

Balthazar’s laugh contains a hint of bitterness. For the life of him, Castiel doesn’t know if that bitterness is directed at the situation or at him. “Why, whatever we tell you to be doing, of course.” 

\---

Every Super has a base of operations, somewhere where they store their equipment, transportation, and technology. Since Castiel can fly, he doesn’t need transportation, and his powers negate the need for a lot of the technology that other Supers require, so his base remains relatively sparse. A large bank of computers takes up most of the space. Their soft glow illuminates the dark room, turning a standard office space into something mysterious and threatening. On the screens, words and numbers zip by at a pace too quick to discern except by Balthazar. To him, those words and numbers contain the identities of threats throughout the city and the outlying areas. The intelligence is filtered through government servers and fed by data analysts throughout the country. No doubt it’s an involved process, but Castiel doesn’t care. It’s not as if anyone bothers to consult him before sending him off to take care of the newest threat. Sometimes, he feels more like a weapon than anything else. Balthazar gives him the information, points him in the direction of the target, and pulls the trigger. Castiel takes care of the problem. Rinse, reload, repeat. 

The base isn’t welcoming. Castiel tries to avoid spending any more time here than is strictly required, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Mission briefings happen in the base because most of the time, the intelligence is too sensitive. Civilians don’t  _ really  _ want to know about the dozens of threats which surround them. They just want to believe that someone else is taking care of them. 

Castiel collapses into one of their uncomfortable conference chairs while Balthazar taps at his tablet. After a few seconds, the projector comes to life, flashing an image on the back wall. The grainy surveillance photos take up the entire space, but they’re such poor quality that it still takes Castiel a few seconds to figure out what he’s looking at. They’re taken from the lobby of what looks like several different banks. In each photo, one figure is circled, but the appearance of the circled figure changes from picture to picture. 

Balthazar’s voice slips into the crisp, business-like tones he uses for briefings. “In the past three weeks, five bank robberies have taken place throughout the city. All of robberies occurred in broad daylight, and all of them ended with at least one casualty. Estimates are that upwards of $2.5 million were taken, though they’re still coming up with the full total.” 

Castiel squints at the pictures. “They’re thinking that a gang is responsible?”

“No. The behavioral analysts want to call this a single perpetrator.” 

Castiel squints harder. “I’m still somewhat inebriated, but I’m almost certain that those are all different people. How can this be one person?” 

Balthazar shrugs. “I’m not a member of law enforcement, so I’m not wholly sure of their jargon, but they seem to think that there are too many similarities between the robberies. The crimes were almost identical, down to the weapons, words, and demands. Plus, there was never any sighting of multiple people at the robberies. Just a single person, asking for the same thing, again and again.” 

“One person,” Castiel says. He looks at the pictures again, trying to picture the scenes as they must have appeared while the crimes were taking place. While he’ll need to look over the police report for details, he has no reason to mistrust Balthazar or the police. If they think it’s a single person committing the crimes, then he’ll operate on the assumption that it’s one person. “How could one person…” 

He gets up so he can get a better look at the pictures. “The circles. They denote the person committing the robberies?” A nod from Balthazar confirms, and Castiel returns to inspect the pictures. 

There’s no physical similarity between the persons. One is a matronly looking woman of approximately sixty-five years old, another is a young, African-American man, while yet another is a white, Wall Street mogul type. A young teenager and a nondescript, somewhat dumpy man round out the suspects. All of them look like the least likely person in the lobby to commit a crime. 

“They’ve got to have some kind of super-strength,” Castiel murmurs. At Balthazar’s raised eyebrow, he explains, “Some of these body types would be incapable of subduing the security guards, so whoever this is, they’ve got to have some kind of super-strength. Otherwise, the guards would have dealt with them, and this wouldn’t be my problem.” 

“Police have already given them a name. They’re calling them the Shapeshifter.” 

“Clever.” Lately, the police and the press seem to be in a running game to come up first with a moniker for any Super.  _ Shapeshifter _ is predictable, and better yet, it looks good in print and sounds good over the news. “I guess that’s why I’ve been getting the questions about the rise in violent crime.” 

Balthazar’s nod is unapologetic. “It would make sense.” 

Castiel barely manages to restrain his rage. “So you knew about this. And instead of allowing me to do my job, you thought my time would be best spent promoting a club one of your sleazy friends uses to launder money?” 

“Cas, your opinion of me is a little hurtful.” Balthazar doesn’t actually sound all that offended, which means that Castiel’s accusations weren’t far from the truth. “You know that I have nothing but your best interests at heart.” 

Castiel scoffs. “My best interests. How many times have I told you--” 

Balthazar moves quickly enough to surprise Castiel. He shoves his face into Castiel’s space and forces him to push his chair backward. “And how long were you going to stay rotting away in that squalid library, making pennies and scraping snot off of books held together with nothing but duct tape and good will? How long were you going to lust after a man who’s never given the slightest indication that he sees you as anything more than his quaint, college friend? Face it, Cassie, you’re nothing more than a doormat to him, and until I came into your life, you were perfectly happy with that.” 

Each word corkscrews through Castiel’s defenses until they hit his vulnerable center. They leave holes behind, and Castiel knows they’re visible. He clenches his jaw and meets Balthazar’s eyes. 

“I’m going to be patrolling and investigating for the next few nights. If you call, I’m not answering. I don’t care what sub-clause of the contract you pull out.” Balthazar opens his mouth, but before he has a chance to speak, Castiel slams his fist down on the table. 

The sturdy wooden table bows in the center, groaning under the blow. Sparks dance across Castiel’s skin, and he knows that if he were to look in a mirror right now, his eyes would be glowing an ethereal blue. 

“If you  _ dare  _ to threaten Dean over this, then I swear to you, I’m done. With all of it.” 

Balthazar shuts his mouth. 

  
  


***~*~*~*~***


	4. Chapter 4

***~*~*~*~***

  
  


“Dean!” 

Dean shakes himself out of his stupor and looks at Charlie. Her expression is a combination between irate and worried. While Dean is watching, she plucks a single piece of popcorn from the large bowl in her lap and throws it at him. Dean barely blinks as it hits him square in the forehead. 

“Sorry,” he says, flicking his eyes back towards the TV. He honestly can’t remember what they’re watching. Given the irritated expression on Charlie’s face, he doesn’t want to ask. “I’m just… It was a rough day at work.” 

It was actually a normal day at work, but he can’t stop thinking about the fight he had with Cas. It’s all the worse because it wasn’t actually a fight. 

He knows, from experience, that Cas has a hell of a temper. He’s seen Cas blow up at homophobes, people who drive slowly in the left hand lane, and, on one memorable occasion, someone who drew a penis in the margins of  _ A Farewell to Arms.  _ Castiel Novak has a fucking temper, and the fact that he didn’t lose yesterday on Dean isn’t something to be happy about. It just means that out of all the things Cas cares about, Dean is no longer one of them. 

“Yeah?” Charlie spends longer chewing a single piece of popcorn than should ever be spent. “Maybe you should take a vacation. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately.” 

Dean scoffs. “Where would I even go?” 

“The beach? A cabin in the woods? Canada? Literally anywhere that isn’t your office, your apartment, or my apartment?” 

“Sometimes I go to Sam’s house,” Dean protests. 

Charlie doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response. She rolls her eyes, to the point where Dean’s surprised they don’t fall out of her skull, before she grabs the remote. The figures on the TV pause in mid-action, all wearing ridiculous expressions on their faces. Charlie tosses the remote down on the couch before turning her attention back to Dean. 

“All right. Spill.” 

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.” He’s playing for time in the vague hopes that Charlie will lose interest and focus on the movie. It’s a futile hope, and one that’s almost immediately dashed as Charlie rolls her eyes again. This time, she slaps the back of the couch to punctuate her irritation. 

“Oh, for the love of… You call me, right on the dot at five o’clock, and invite yourself over to my apartment. You kill two beers in the span of thirty minutes, and then you ignore  _ The Mandalorian.  _ You ignore  _ Baby Yoda, _ Dean. What the hell is going on?” 

Pinned underneath Charlie’s astute gaze, Dean squirms uncomfortably. Charlie’s couch is nowhere near as comfortable as the couch in his apartment. It smells like one too many asses have been on it throughout the years, and the cushions have significant dips in the middle. Dozens of games have been played on this couch, movies have been watched on this couch, and (Dean shudders to think of it) relationships have been consummated on this couch. It’s by the kindest of definitions, a shitty couch, but Dean loves it, the same way that he loves any links to his former life. 

“I think I’m going to tell Cas about the house,” he finally admits.

Charlie’s face falls. She’s known Cas for as long as Dean has, and she knows what Dean’s confession will mean for them both. She spent all-nighters with him in the library, cheered his triumphs, and mourned his defeats. When Cas joined the ranks of the Supers, he didn’t just pull away from Dean. He retreated from all aspects of his former life, Charlie included. She misses Cas, same as Dean, and she’s just as lost for ways to bring him back to his former self. 

“Maybe if you tell him, he’ll… I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a wakeup call.” 

“Yeah. Maybe.” Dean doesn’t bother to argue. Popping Charlie’s optimistic bubble sometimes feels like kicking a puppy that’s already had a difficult life. “I just wish…” Dean sighs. He learned from his father, a long time ago, that wishing was a useless endeavor. 

“What?” Charlie prods his shin with her foot. “Dean, it’s just you and me here. What do you wish?” 

“I wish that Cas didn’t have powers,” bursts out of Dean’s mouth. 

The second the words are out of his mouth, Dean wishes he could stuff them back in. Saying them feels like a betrayal, like he wants Cas to be lesser. It feels like he’s dragging Cas down into the dirt, doomed to toil and die like the rest of the mundane populace. Cas is wondrous. Cas is fantastic. Dean should be proud of Cas, but instead, he wants to take away the thing which made Cas special. 

Well. The thing that made Cas special to the rest of the world. He was always special to Dean. 

“You’re allowed to want that,” Charlie says, perhaps a little more kindly than Dean might want. 

“I’m a piece of shit for wanting that,” Dean harshly corrects her. “I mean, Cas is out there, living his best life, and I’m pissed at him because I’m not a part of it.” 

Dean fervently wishes for another drink, but Charlie, proving that she’s the smarter one out of them, already cut him off after two beers. Devoid of liquid comfort, Dean’s forced to say the next words stone-cold sober. “It’s not a big deal. People grow apart after college. New careers, new interests. This would have happened anyway.” 

Even as he says it, he knows it’s a lie. At the very least, it’s comforting to believe. It feels better, somehow, to think that the decline of his and Cas’ relationship was inevitable. Like taxes, or the heat death of the universe. 

The look on Charlie’s face says that Dean is less than convincing. “You know what I think?” Without waiting for an answer, she proceeds to tell him what she thinks. “You’ve got to  _ talk  _ to Cas. Actually talk to him. Not the passive aggressive sniping or whatever monosyllabic grunts you think count as communication.” 

Dean tries to contest Charlie’s appraisal of the situation, but it’s no good. She knows him too well. 

“Talk to him,” Charlie insists. In short order, Dean finds his feet in his boots, his jacket on his back, and his ass out the door. He turns around to protest, only to have the door shut in his face. After that, he doesn’t have a choice but to slink back to his car. 

Truth be told, he’s avoiding the apartment. He’s avoiding the apartment because Cas might be there. If Cas is there, then Dean’s going to have to tell him what he’s been doing. He’s going to have to tell Cas that he’s been in touch with a realtor, and that his finances are in order to buy a house. He’ll tell Cas that it’s time for him to have his own place, and that they’ll stay in touch, and all the other lies people say when they know a friendship is ending, but Dean knows: if he moves out of the apartment, that’s it. No matter how often he does or doesn’t talk to Cas, their friendship will be over. That thought makes Dean’s stomach churn. Just for a little while longer, he wants to hold onto the fantasy where he and Cas live together without a care in the world. 

Dean starts the drive back home. 

\---

Cas’ car is in the parking lot when he gets back. Normally, this would be an indicator that his roommate is home, but when said roommate possesses the ability of flight, the common rules tend to go out the window. 

Unsurprisingly, the apartment is dark and quiet. Dean’s footsteps are the only noise as they echo off of the polished hardwood floors. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights; he knows the layout of the apartment well enough to navigate in the dark. He’s just passing through the living room when a quiet voice calls out, “Hello, Dean.” 

Dean’s heart jumps out of his chest and promptly slams back into his ribcage. “Jesus, Cas,” he curses, fumbling for a light. The sudden burst of brightness makes him hiss and duck his head, at least until his pupils have a chance to contract. 

Cas peers at him over the back of the couch. Other than his slow blink, his face is an inscrutable canvas. “Were you just sitting here in the dark?” Dean asks. 

Cas must have come straight in from a patrol. He’s wearing his Seraph outfit. The suit is a special blend of spandex and fifty other government patented fabrics that clings to his body like a second skin. The shoulders and chest piece are made of a thick, black material meant to protect vital organs and joints, while the sides are made out of a dark purple fabric. When the light catches the purple fabric, it shimmers in a way that’s almost celestial, which Dean guesses was the point. No point in having a Super named Seraph if you can’t take advantage of the connotations of the name. A dark mask covers his eyes: pointless since the names of Supers are all public record, but Dean supposes it’s a throwback to comics and movies. People expect what they expect. 

Dean certainly didn’t expect to find Cas in their apartment, sitting in the dark, still dressed in his suit like he’s on a lunch break. 

Cas looks around the apartment, like he’s just suddenly realizing where he is. “I didn’t mean to sit down,” he finally says. “I thought… I just meant to come here for a second.” 

“What, did you have to slip into your other suit?” Dean snarks. Almost immediately after, Charlie’s voice echoes through his head, and Dean cringes in shame. For a therapist, he’s shit at communication. “Shit. I’m sorry. That was a dick thing to say.” He sits on the chair opposite the couch and leans forward. “Talk to me.” 

His guilt compounds when he catches the uncertainty in Cas’ eyes. How far has their relationship disintegrated that Cas is suspicious of a simple act of kindness? 

“About anything,” Dean continues. “It doesn’t have to be about… shit. Tell me about a new collection you got at the library.” 

Amazingly, the corner of Cas’ mouth quirks upward in a smile. “You know, when it comes to 17th century texts, hardly anything is new,” he says in a wry tone. 

“Yeah? Well, you’re pretty smart. I’m sure that you’ll manage to find a previously undiscovered verb.” 

“You know, there’s actually a truly fascinating correlation between…” Cas stops. “You don’t want to hear about that.” 

“No, I do,” Dean insists, though his eyes are already glazing over. He just can’t find the same enthusiasm in academia as Cas. Cas can wax poetic over the illumination styles in manuscripts for at least an hour and a half (not hyperbolic, Dean timed him once). “Please. Tell me more about the verbiage.” 

Cas’ eyes narrow at the light mockery. Dean waits with baited breath, sure that this will spark another fight, but some semblance of peace seems to be hanging over the apartment tonight. “And listen to you complain? Just rest assured that I know more about linguistic properties than you ever will.” 

“And if I need the final answer for Jeopardy, you’re the first person I’ll call.” 

“They don’t let you call on Jeopardy,” Cas frowns. “You’re thinking of that other show.” 

“I’ll sneak a phone in and text you. And you’d better come through too. It’ll be my reputation on the line.” 

“I think that anyone who knew you even tangentially wouldn’t think less of you for not knowing about obscure manuscripts.” 

Dean pretends to be offended. “Are you calling me stupid?” 

“Never.” 

And that’s the thing about Cas, the thing that Dean can’t understand, the thing that keeps him up at night, alternately furious and hurt: he’s so goddamn  _ earnest.  _ He looks scandalized at the mere suggestion that anyone could think Dean was stupid, even though no one would ever accused Dean of being the brains of the operation. He got through college and his master’s by working hard and possessing a natural aptitude for instinctively understanding what a person needed to talk about in that particular moment. He’s certainly not a world class mind like Cas, which makes it all the more flattering that Cas has always been one of the most vocal defenders of his intelligence. 

How does someone who once argued over the relative merits of the Arial font versus the Times New Roman font end up partying at nightclubs every night? 

“Yeah. Well.” Dean rubs over his face (he can feel the heat rising from his cheeks, and once again he damns his fair complexion) and looks at Cas. “So why are you sitting in the dark?” 

And maybe it’s because there’s a glimmer in the air of what they used to be, maybe it’s just because they’re both too tired to obfuscate or lie, but Cas leans forward, his knees on his elbows. 

“I had an… I met someone the other day. He was angry with me because his sister had been hurt.” 

The sinking feeling in Dean’s stomach knows where this is going, but he still leans towards Cas. “Cas. People get hurt every day.” 

Cas’ eyes flash with anger. Something stirs in the pit of Dean’s stomach when he realizes that Cas’ eyes are actually glowing. “Not on my watch. That was the deal. That was the one of the reasons why…” 

“It’s a big city,” Dean says, trying to be gentle. “You can’t be everywhere at once. No one expects that of you.” 

“Don’t they? Isn’t that my job, to be there when people are in trouble?” 

“I don’t know,” Dean says helplessly. All the old resentments are bubbling up in his chest. He tries to keep them down, but it’s like trying to keep down vomit that’s already working its up an esophagus. Eventually, at some point, it’s inevitable. 

“I don’t know what your job is, Cas. Is it the library? Is it being a Super? Or is it going wherever Balthazar drags you to and smiling like a good lapdog? I don’t know what your job is, and that’s one thing, but when  _ you  _ don’t know what it is, maybe that’s when you should start asking questions.” 

Cas starts to pull away. Desperate to keep him and the only peace they’ve had in weeks, Dean slides out of his chair. He ends up on his knees in front of Cas, his shoulders and ribs bullying Cas’ legs apart. Maybe he should feel worried about the position he’s found himself in, but he’ll deal with that later. For now, he grabs Cas’ wrists, forcing him to remain. 

“You wanted to  _ help  _ people. That’s what you told me when all this started, that’s why you agreed to the contracts and the publicity and everything else, because you thought that was how you could do it. Who are you helping?” 

Cas stares at him. There’s a terrible blankness in his face, one which forebodes disaster, but Dean has to keep going. He and Cas are standing on the edge of the cliff. With one movement, he can either save them both, or send them tumbling into oblivion. 

“Please, talk to me,” Dean outright begs. “Let me help you. You’re my best friend, Cas.” 

The words aren’t quite what he wants to say. The words he truly wants to say are locked behind his lips, not to be released. Certainly not now, and maybe not ever. Besides, Dean doubts that even that sentiment could change anything. Even as he says the last sentence, Cas’ eyes shutter. 

“You can’t help,” Cas says. Quietly. Firmly. Like there’s no discussion to be had. “It’s not something that either you or I can fix. It’s just… what there is.” 

Dean’s heart goes cold as Cas gently but decisively pulls his hands free. Dean’s hands fall into his lap, defeated. Cas doesn’t leave, but neither does he reach out, and even though Dean’s shoulders are pressing into the inside of Cas’ knees, he doesn’t think he’s ever been further from him. 

The question tumbles out before Dean’s realized he’s going to ask it. “What does he have on you?” 

Cas’ head lifts, too sharply and quickly to be anything other than panic. “What?” he asks, after a long pause. 

“Balthazar. The government. The men in black. The aliens. Whoever. What do they have on you? Is it just the money?” Please god, don’t let it be just the money that’s turning Cas into a stranger. 

“Don’t ask that question.” Cas’ voice comes down like a guillotine. “Dean, don’t ever… I know it might not seem like it, but I  _ am _ helping people. This is just the way that it has to be.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” He’s fighting a losing battle; they’re slipping over the cliff. Cas is drowning, and and Dean is reaching out with a lifeboat, but Cas isn’t taking hold. “Please, Cas. Please, we can fix this.” 

“Dean, it isn’t broken.” 

Cas stands up so suddenly that Dean’s knocked back on his ass. From this angle, Cas is inscrutable and alien. Like this, Dean could never hope to touch him. Friendship is a distant dream, anything deeper is an impossibility. 

“I have to go. I have to…” Already, Cas’ skin and eyes are glowing with the use of his powers. He’s ethereal. He’s eternal. He’s Seraph. 

Cas looks down at him, and for a minute, Dean’s traitorous heart beats faster. Maybe they can still save this. Maybe they can… 

“It was really nice talking to you,” Castiel says. Sadness lurks behind his eyes. Before Dean can respond, before he can even open his mouth, Cas is gone, leaving Dean alone in the living room of their apartment. 

  
  


-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Castiel tugs at the sleeve of his sweater as he raises his hand to stifle a yawn. While his late-night patrols have resulted in the arrest of several petty criminals, he hasn’t found anything close to a supervillain. Certainly not one who can change their shape at will, though how would he know? Any one of the dozens of graduate students winding their way through his section could be Shapeshifter. It’s a thought which festers, and for the rest of the day, he can’t meet anyone’s eyes. 

At lunch, Hannah, the Senior Librarian, comes up to him. Though her sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired, she’s one of the few people who’s never treated him any differently on account of his night job. She doesn’t offer him special perks, or act awed in his presence, or treat him with a strange mixture of deference and resentment like Dean. She treats him like any other librarian, and in Castiel’s life, the anonymity is refreshing. 

“Is there a problem?” she asks bluntly. Castiel looks up from the pile of manuscripts which he’s cataloguing. 

“Beg your pardon?” 

“I was asking if you had a problem. You’ve been yawning all morning and I’ve noticed you staring strangely at some of the patrons. I didn't know if you were ill, or if you were under some form of duress.” 

It’s an inopportune time for a yawn to arise, and Castiel tries to fight it. “My apologies. It was a long…” He stops himself from making an excuse. “I’ll be fine for the afternoon. It won’t affect my work.” 

Hannah’s expression is more serious than usual. Underneath her unblinking stare, Castiel starts to fidget. It’s a rare person who can make him fidget, but Hannah manages it. 

“I don’t think I ever expressed my admiration for what you do.” 

Castiel smiles graciously, even as his heart sinks. “Well, it’s just the least that I could--” he begins, but Hannah interrupts him. 

“Many people wouldn’t bother keeping their day job when they were offered the money that you were.” Castiel blinks in surprise, but Hannah, seemingly unaware that she’s said anything out of the ordinary, continues. “I’ll admit, when your resume was first shown to me, I was against hiring you. I thought you only wanted to work here for a publicity stunt, but now I see that I was wrong. You’re conscientious, dedicated, and discrete. You’ve never once used your position to jockey for favor or try to escape your responsibilities.” 

“Is there a reason you’re telling me this now?” Perhaps Castiel is just being paranoid, but this sounds remarkably like the speech someone would hear when they’re getting fired.

“I’m telling you to use your position to escape your responsibilities.” 

Castiel blinks. “I’m sorry?” 

“You’re exhausted and distracted, and I think you’re disturbing some of the patrons. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I read the papers. I know you’re under a lot of pressure. I think you should leave and take care of it.” 

“Will I still have a job when I return?” 

Hannah blinks. Her expression shifts to surprise. “Of course,” she says slowly. “Did you not just hear me state all the reasons you were a model employee?” 

Castiel shrugs. “I thought you were just letting me down easy.” 

Hannah’s head tilts. “Why would I do that?” 

Castiel amuses himself for a moment by imagining a meeting between Dean and Hannah. Which would crumble first: Dean’s sarcasm or Hannah’s obliviousness? It’s an interesting mental exercise, but it’s one in which he doesn’t indulge in for long. 

“It’s just…” Castiel stops before he can divulge the ruins of his personal and professional life. By the time this is over, he’ll have nothing left. It’ll be just him and Balthazar and how pathetic will that be? 

“I’ve got to take care of… There’s just a problem. And it’s up to me to solve it.” 

Castiel doesn’t know what he’s referring to: Shapeshifter, his government contract, or his crumbling relationship with Dean. There are dozens of problems, and Castiel is the only one who can solve them. He’s the weapon: point him at the problem and pull the trigger. 

“Thank you,” he says, knowing that it’s not enough. Surprisingly, Hannah doesn’t appear to need more than that. 

“We’ll cover your responsibilities until you can return. And Castiel? Good luck.” 

Castiel nods. He’ll need it. 

\---

As ridiculous as he felt the first time he wore his suit, Castiel does have to admit that it has many benefits. There’s already a chill in the early evening air, not severe, but cold enough to make the tip of his nose ache, but his suit protects him from the worst of it. The suit is just one of the many benefits he’s reaped from his government contract. 

Castiel’s stomach clenches at the thought. He can’t think of his government contract without thinking of Dean, and he can’t think of Dean without thinking of the previous night. 

He’d returned home from patrolling, not because it was necessary, but because he’d just wanted something familiar. The apartment was empty, and Castiel ached with it. He’d wanted Dean to be there. He’d wanted someone to talk to, someone to support him and say he was doing the right thing. More than anything, he’d wanted  _ Dean,  _ so when Dean had walked into the apartment, Castiel’s heart had jumped with a barely repressed surge of glee. 

And for a few moments, everything had been perfect. They’d been best friends again, and Castiel had allowed his mind to drift into the forbidden fantasies of being able to be more with Dean. For a moment, it seemed like it was within reach. 

And then Dean, kind, compassionate, fierce Dean, had asked how he could help. He asked about the contract, and the contract was the one thing that Castiel couldn’t discuss. 

He  _ couldn’t.  _ He’d known, the second he’d signed it, that he would never discuss the contents with Dean. 

Balthazar had raised his eyebrows when Castiel laid out his terms of compliance. “And that’s it? You don’t want anything else?” 

Castiel looked up. His hand was still shaking slightly and he laid down the pen to hide it. “What else could I want?” 

Balthazar shrugged. “Some Supers negotiate for private jets.” 

“I can fly.” 

“So a jet would be redundant. I don’t know. A castle? Bragging rights? Whatever people want these days.” 

“I don’t want any of that. All I want is for Dean and Sam to be taken care of.”   


Balthazar snatched the contract out from underneath Castiel’s hands. “And they will be. That’s the carrot. You understand the stick, right?” Castiel nodded, but Balthazar, already in love with the sound of his own voice, continued. “Dean and Sam Winchester will be under surveillance. They will be the tools which are used to keep you in line. As long as you comply with the terms of the contract, everything continues normally. Diverge from the terms… Dean and Sam are the ones who will pay the price.” 

Castiel swallowed. “I wasn’t expecting you to state it so plainly. I was expecting… I don’t know. Thinly veiled threats.” 

Balthazar’s laugh was devoid of humor. “We’re the government and time is money. Thinly veiled threats are misunderstood, and we’d like to be as clear as possible so you understand the stakes.” 

And that had been that. Castiel had been locked into a contract, which meant that his life was no longer his own. No matter where Balthazar directed him, he went, and other than small grumblings, he did it largely without complaint. Always, the contract hung over him like the Sword of Damocles, with Dean’s practice and Sam’s law career on the line if he failed. 

And then Dean asked how he could help Castiel break the contract, ignorant of the fact that breaking the contract would spell the end of everything which he built over the past five years. And Castiel left because he couldn’t bear to see the moment when Dean lost respect for him. He only returned to the apartment in the early hours of the morning, when the black of night was starting to yield to the gray of dawn. From within Dean’s room, he heard the first sounds of movement, but Castiel didn’t dare show his face. Instead, he collapsed into bed, seizing a few hours sleep before he went to the library. 

All of those events brought him here. Right now he’s perched on the roof of one of the bank towers, scanning the streets below for any hint of a disturbance. No sirens break the city’s ambience; no screams shatter the otherwise normal Tuesday afternoon. 

How is he supposed to track down someone who can be any person they want? How is he supposed to develop any kind of leads? 

Prior to the advent of his powers, Castiel’s investigative skills were limited to trying to figure out the answer to murder mysteries before Dean, mostly to give him bragging rights. While he enjoys a good whodunit mystery as much as the next person, real life rarely comes with an influx of clues laid out in neat interviews and convenient conversations. Mostly, Castiel stops crime when he finds it. Preventing it is a whole different measure. 

He sighs and wraps his arms around his knees, pulling them to his chest. He has no idea what he’s going to do. Either Balthazar is sulking or he genuinely doesn’t have any information, but Castiel hasn’t heard from him in twenty-four hours, which is a new record. Without guidance, Castiel is flailing, and meanwhile, Shapeshifter is gearing up for another robbery. 

A sharp yelp splits the otherwise mundane noises of the city and captures Castiel’s attention. No one without enhanced hearing would be able to pick out the individual sound from the larger cacophony, but to Castiel’s ears it’s the equivalent of a bell ringing in silence. 

He leans forward, waiting, and then he hears it again, though this time it’s cut off. Castiel’s stomach lurches. He knows what that means. Luckily, he also knows where the sound came from. He stands up and steps into nothingness. 

A moment later, he’s standing in a small convenience store. Muzak plays over the speakers, while the young clerk cowers behind the counter. A figure with a stocking mask pulled over his face threatens her with a gun. He gestures wildly at her while screaming for her to pull more money from the till. 

“That’s all there is,” she sobs. Castiel has seen enough. 

He knows that some Supers take pride in quipping with criminals. Their one-liners are later recounted by witnesses to reporters and anyone else who will listen. Occasionally, if they’re witty enough, they make their way onto a t-shirt design. 

Castiel’s merchandise is woefully inadequate. He prefers action over snark. Without wasting any more time, he moves. In two steps, he’s standing beside the robber. Castiel closes his hand over the man’s wrist and listens in satisfaction as the bone breaks under the force. The man starts to shriek, and the sound only grows in pitch and volume when Castiel’s foot shoots out and shatters his knee. He buckles and falls to the floor where he clutches the ruin of his joint and howls. The gun is kicked away. 

Castiel turns to the clerk, who watches him with wide eyes. “Are you all right?” he asks, but the explosive boom of a gunshot swallows her reply. 

A partner. 

He turns around just in time for the next two shots to catch him squarely in the chest. The clerk shrieks, but Castiel never flinches. Getting shot is an inconvenience, but it’s not something that will sideline him. Balthazar will bitch because at least one bullet has ripped a hole in his suit, but if he were to take his suit off, he knows that his skin would remain unblemished. 

“What the fuck?” the partner screams, his finger working the trigger. He empties the entire clip into Castiel, all to no avail. Castiel doesn’t even break stride as he walks back towards him, wings flaring out in a threatening display. 

One hand clamps around the partner’s throat as Castiel walks him backward. He shoves him into the refrigerator housing soft drinks. The glass splinters under impact, tiny shards falling to the floor. “Was your job to wait and shoot any rescuers?” Castiel growls. 

He doesn’t give the man a chance to answer. One swift movement breaks his wrist. His gun is also dropped and kicked away. As soon as he doesn’t have a weapon, Castiel drops the partner. Ignoring his cries of pain as his broken wrist is manipulated, Castiel reaches for the flexi-cuffs on his belt. By restraining the robbers, he can leave with a clear conscience. He just doesn’t enjoy dealing with police. Even though, as a Super, he has the power to make citizen’s arrests, and his involvement means that convictions usually hold up in courts of law, he doesn’t like having to go through the paperwork which inevitably happens when the police get involved. So much easier for him to not be involved. 

He drags the partner up to where the first robber is still wailing in pain. He restrains him as well, though it’s doubtful he would have been going anywhere on his own. After making sure that neither of them can break free, Castiel looks for the clerk. “Have you called 911?” he asks, then frowns when silence greets his question. 

Perhaps she’s just in shock. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s found a witness or victim almost catatonic, and it certainly won’t be the last, though it does slow him down somewhat. “Are you all right?” 

Castiel peers over the counter and curses quietly. There, huddled against the back wall, is the clerk. Her hand is pushed against her shoulder, and from under her fingers, a slow leak of blood stains her shirt. 

Not all of the bullets landed in his flesh. 

Rage billows in Castiel's chest, and he strains to keep it contained. Kicking the shit out of these lowlifes won’t fix the situation. He can only help if he keeps a calm and level head. Castiel clears the counter in a single jump, landing lightly next to her. He crouches down and reaches out, careful to keep his movements slow. The glazed look in her eyes and her rapid breaths tell him that she’s moments away from going into shock, if she’s not there already. “Can you hear me?” he asks, keeping his voice low and soothing. 

After a second, the clerk nods. “You’re him,” she says, the words coming out with effort. “Seraph.” 

Castiel almost rolls his eyes at the name. “You can call me Cas,” he says, though the clerk immediately shakes her head in rejection of his actual name. “What’s your name?” 

Her eyes flick towards him then down at her shoulder and then up towards him. “Alanna,” she finally says. 

“Okay, Alanna, I’m going to heal you.” Even as he says it, Castiel hopes that he can. His powers of healing are spotty at best, and a bullet wound, even in the shoulder, isn’t anything to dismiss. But he can’t walk away and leave Alanna in pain, or possibly worse. 

Castiel gently removes her hand from her shoulder. Without the pressure of her hand, the flow of blood from the bullet hole increases. Alanna whimpers in pain, but Castiel tries to put that out of his mind. He needs his thoughts clear if this has any hope of success. 

He lowers his hand to less than an inch above the wound and concentrates. His heart skips when he feels heat gather in his palm, but he doesn’t dare let himself falter. 

His palm heats up to almost unbearable levels. Light pours out of his hand and into Alanna’s shoulder. She whimpers in pain, but Castiel doesn’t pull away. His wings strain behind him, pulling at his shoulders and back as he dips deep into his power. He forces power into Alanna’s body, feeling the muscles and tendons knit back together, but he doesn’t stop until the skin is smooth and unblemished. 

Castiel falls backward. The impact with the ground sends pain rocketing up his spine, but he focuses on Alanna’s shoulder. 

It’s healed. There’s not the slightest hint of torn skin, a bullet hole, or even a bruise on her tan skin. Other than her wide, fearful eyes, there’s no sign of her ordeal. Castiel lets out a long sigh of relief. 

Alanna touches her shoulder. When her fingers come back clean and free of blood, she turns towards Castiel. There’s awe in her eyes as well as a little bit of fear. “What are you?” she asks. 

Perhaps she’s just confused. Healed or not, she was just the victim of a violent crime, and people’s minds get confused in the aftermath. It’s entirely possible that she meant to say  _ Who are you?  _ But she says  _ What  _ and that simple question shatters him. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel says, more honest than he’s been in years. 

A single beat of his wings takes him back to the top of the bank tower, where he begins his lonely vigil anew. 

  
  


**~*~*~*~*~***


	5. Chapter 5

**~*~*~*~*~***

Dean sits back in his chair and cranes his neck in a futile attempt to work the tension out. He must have slept strangely last night; there’s a strange twinge at the back of his neck that’s been bothering him all day. No matter how he tries to stretch, he can’t manage to rid himself of the tiny bolt of pain. 

His phone buzzes with an incoming call. Upon seeing Sam’s name on the screen, Dean answers. “Hey, Sammy,” he greets, smiling at Sam’s irritated huff. 

“You know, Sammy grew old as a nickname by the time I was fourteen. I’m twenty-five now. It’s been  _ really  _ old now for eleven years.” 

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that Sammy. What else can I do for you?” 

“Dinner, tonight. My house. Eileen’s cooking. Well, I’m cooking, and Eileen is making margaritas, which is probably a better division of labor.” 

“Eileen’s making margaritas?” Dean’s interest perks. “Why tonight?” 

“I can’t want to see my big brother?” 

“You can and you should want to see your big brother, every single day, so he can give you the wisdom which you are lacking. But I’m asking, why the last minute invite? What if I had a date tonight?” 

Sam’s laugh probably shouldn’t sound quite as amused as it does. “Yeah, I’m not holding my breath on that.” 

“I  _ could  _ have had a date,” Dean insists, but he drops that line pretty quickly. He doesn’t need Sam reminding him that it’s been a good six months since he went on a date (which was disastrous; she flossed her teeth  _ at the table).  _ “Anyway. What time?” 

“Show up around six. And don’t worry about bringing anything, we’ll have everything ready.” 

“Well, it’s a short notice, so I don’t have anything to bring anyway.” 

“Shut up. Show up at six and be nice, and Eileen will give you margaritas. Jerk.” 

“Bitch,” Dean finishes cheerfully, before hanging up. 

The twinge still hasn’t disappeared from his neck, but the prospect of a dinner with Sam means that he’s better able to ignore it. He doesn’t see Sam nearly as much as he likes; Sam’s fancy job at the District Attorney’s office keeps him pretty busy. Dean will jump on any chance to spend time with his little brother and his wife, even if the invitation comes three hours before he’s supposed to be there. 

He works straight through until it’s time to leave for Sam’s house. He’s been trying to spend as little time as possible in the apartment. He still hasn’t told Cas about the house, and every second he spends in the apartment with that knowledge weighing over his shoulders feels like a betrayal. This morning the burners on the oven had glared at him, and Dean had to flee back to his room. 

He pushes those thoughts away as he pulls into Sam’s driveway. Sam’s respectable Prius and Eileen’s slightly snazzier hatchback are already in the drive, but those don’t make Dean’s jaw fall open. No, that honor goes to the small, blue sedan parking alongside the curb. Dean blinks, sure that he’s hallucinating, but no, that’s Cas climbing out of the car. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. 

Cas blinks at him. “Well, Sam asked me over for dinner.” 

A hot, unpleasant twist of  _ something  _ (Dean refuses to call it  _ jealousy) _ clenches in his stomach. “And you just what? Showed up?” 

“Well, he can be very persuasive,” Cas says, as if it’s a perfectly normal thing that he and Dean should be meeting Dean’s little brother and his wife for dinner, and not like it’s been over a year since the four of them have been in a room together. Like it’s perfectly normal that Cas shows up the first time Sam asks, after ignoring Dean’s multiple and increasingly desperate attempts to get him to spend time with him. 

“Dean, Cas. Come on inside!” Sam’s bulk takes up the entire door frame. Dean doesn’t know if his glare carries from the driveway to the door, but he hopes it does. How  _ dare  _ Sam drop this on him without any warning? 

There’s a slight guilty edge in Sam’s eyes when Dean slides past him into the house, which Dean notes with satisfaction. He doesn’t say anything yet; let Sam fester and stew in his own guilt. He knows what he did. 

“I’m really glad you could make it, Cas.” Sam hugs Cas and does everything short of dropping cheek kisses on him. Luckily, Dean’s attention is taken by Eileen. 

“Hi, Dean,” she says, pressing a margarita into his hand. He leans over to hug her, then makes sure that she can see his face clearly before he greets her. His sign language is still pretty crappy, and it becomes pretty difficult once one hand is holding a margarita. 

He’s not jealous that Sam managed to find his forever person at the tender age of twenty-three and that they married in a whirlwind romance. He’s not. Eileen is one of the most amazing people he’s ever met, and the fact that she’s a children’s advocacy lawyer is just the kickass cherry on top of a sundae that was pretty kickass to begin with. She and Dean get along like a house on fire, and before he went off the grid and became focused on his Super lifestyle, the same could have been said for her and Cas. 

So he’s not jealous. But he doesn’t deny that it hurts a little bit to see how easily she and Sam move around each other as they set the table, especially when he remembers how he and Cas used to move around each other with the same kind of ease. 

The food is nothing fancy: just tacos with various condiments, but Dean enjoys any food that he doesn’t have to prepare. He packs his plate with four different tacos and ignores Sam’s bitchy glare. “Lettuce,” he comments, shaking one taco in Sam’s face. “Vegetable. Healthy.” 

“It’s iceberg lettuce, which means that it’s basically water in solid green casing. And I think your token attempt to have something green for dinner is smothered underneath the sour cream, meat, and cheese that you’re also shoveling in your mouth.” 

Before dinner can disintegrate into an episode of the Winchester family bickering, Eileen interrupts. “How have you been, Cas?” she asks, loudly enough to catch Sam’s attention. 

With the attention of the table on him, Castiel looks uncomfortable. “Oh, you know.” He shrugs. “Can’t complain. Same old, same old.” 

Sam’s mouth twists in an apologetic grimace. “There’s rumblings in the D.A.’s office about something called Shifter? They seem to think it’s a big deal.” 

Dean’s watching Cas, so he sees the moment when Cas shuts down. His mouth flattens into a thin line, and his eyes shutter. “Do they?” he asks coolly. 

“Yeah.” From Cas’ tone, Sam seems to realize that he made a mistake. “Anyway. Sorry just to talk shop. I know it’s probably not what you wanted to talk about.” 

Cas shrugs. It looks like the gesture costs him a lot. “It’s just been a long week,” he says neutrally. 

Dean takes a larger bite of his taco to keep himself from saying anything. Meanwhile, his mind is awash with questions. Who is this Shifter? Do they have powers? What have they done to warrant catching both Cas’ and Sam’s attention? 

A flicker of worry washes over Dean’s mind. Garden variety thugs are one thing, but when it comes to Supers… Cas fought a Super who broke bad. It’s the only time since Cas got his powers that Dean’s seen a wound on him. It was terrifying. Up until that point, he’d been convinced that Cas was invincible, but Uriel had bruised his face, broken a few ribs, and brought blood to Cas’ face. If Cas hadn’t been just a little bit faster and perhaps a little bit more stubborn than Uriel, it might have been Cas who was brought out of that fight in a bodybag, instead of Uriel coming out of the fight in handcuffs. 

If Cas is getting ready to fight another Super… Dean glowers at Cas while trying not to look like he’s glowering at Cas.  _ How could you keep that from me,  _ he wants to ask, but he doesn’t have the right. Not with the house hanging over his head, not when he’s been deliberately avoiding the spaces which he and Cas share. 

Eileen moves onto a story about a frustrating bit of red tape at her job, and the momentary tension passes. Cas is quiet, but that’s not unusual. Cas’ contributions to conversation count in quality and not quantity. For Dean, it’s enough to see Cas in what used to be his natural environment: debating treatment of Supers by the law, asking about the minutiae of Miranda rights when it comes to arrests by Supers, and paying attention to Eileen’s stories. 

They’ve always been a good team, him, Sam, and Cas. They were a good team even when Sam was still in high school and Dean and Cas were in college, and they became a better team when Eileen joined them. It’s nice to relax into that, even if it’s just for a night. If Dean could press pause on this night, then he would. 

The night ends, as it always does. Eileen packs up some leftovers, Sam once again reminds Dean to eat the occasional vegetable, and both of them implore Cas to be safe. It could almost be a regular night, except for the fact that when the door closes and Dean and Cas are left alone, a chilly atmosphere descends upon them. 

“Are you going back to the apartment?” Cas asks. He looks over Dean’s shoulder like he can’t bear to look him in the eyes. 

“Unless you know another place that I can sleep.” The words come out harsher than he meant. Cas doesn’t flinch, but he does whatever Supers do when someone speaks harshly to them. “What about you?” 

Cas’ eyes turn unerringly towards the direction of downtown. “I have a patrol tonight.” Normally, those words would be enough to make Dean’s heart sink, but there’s just enough reluctance in his voice to make Dean hope. 

“Just for one night,” Dean tries. “For one night, let the city take care of itself. Take a single night for yourself. The city will be there tomorrow.” 

Castiel’s eyes flash as he locks eyes with Dean. “And what about the people in this city? Will they all be there tomorrow? Can they take care of themselves?” He takes a step forward, and a thrill tingles down Dean’s spine. “In case you weren’t listening during dinner, there’s a Super going around the city and wrecking mayhem and havoc throughout. Who’s going to deal with that? The police? There’s  _ no one  _ else who can deal with this, Dean. It  _ has _ to be me.” 

Cas’ shoulders slump. When he continues, he sounds defeated instead of angry. “I know you think it’s hubris, but it’s not. I wish there was someone else, but there’s not. It has to be me.” 

“It shouldn’t be,” Dean whispers. “It’s not fair.” 

“It is what it is,” Castiel says. “Trust me. If I had my choice, I’d rather be with you.” 

Dean’s chest lightens at those words. That, combined with the warmth left over from dinner, enables him to reach out and take Cas’ hand in his. A brilliant flush races over the back of his neck to his cheeks. Hopefully it’s hidden in the darkness of the night. “If you don’t find anything, come home early. I’ll try and stay up. Maybe we can have a movie night. Or something.” 

Cas lifts an eyebrow, but for once, the gesture is fond instead of sarcastic. “You go to bed at nine in the evening.” 

The thought of staying up to midnight and beyond sends a wave of exhaustion rocketing through Dean, but he forces it back. “I’ll make an exception. For you.” 

He feels so sloppy and desperate, but it’s worth it to see Cas’ eyes light up. “All right. I can’t promise anything, but you know. I’ll try.” 

Cas rolls his shoulders and looks towards the sky. Before he has a chance to flap away, Dean grabs his elbow. “Hey. Your car?” 

Cas glances over his shoulder. “It’ll live a night on the curb. I’ll fly back in the morning and pick it up. After all, the sooner I start patrolling, the sooner I can finish. Maybe.” 

A ghost of a smile crosses Cas’ face just before the wings furl out from his back. A single beat launches him into the air and then out of sight. Dean looks up at the sky, trying to pick Cas’ figure out from amongst the stars. It’s impossible, but he tries anyway.

Maybe, just maybe, things are starting to look up. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Castiel has always been fond of Sam Winchester, but at this moment, he thinks that he could honestly kiss him on the mouth. Certainly, Sam didn’t take a sledgehammer to the wall that’s been building between him and Dean, but he did perhaps give Castiel the tools to do it himself. 

When he’d gotten Sam’s invitation for dinner, his first instinct was to decline. Ever since Balthazar told him about Shapeshifter, and certainly after Hannah had released him from his library duties, he’d known that his job, his life, had to be about securing the threat. With the safety of the city and civilians on the line, there was certainly no time to hold a dinner party. 

But Sam didn’t rise through the ranks of the District Attorney’s office for nothing. He’s persuasive and downright stubborn, and not accustomed to accepting no for an answer. Castiel wasn’t exactly sure of how it happened, but somehow, Sam had him agreeing to dinner, and once he’d said yes, he was loath to go back on a promise. 

But now, he’s thinking of exactly what Sam might like for an impromptu birthday present because Sam’s given him the greatest gift he could ask for. The look in Dean’s eyes right before he flew away is probably the best thing that’s happened to him the entire week. 

Now Castiel’s perched on the bank tower, watching the city. He’s almost vibrating with the need to move, yet the city is almost disturbingly quiet. Few headlights streak through the streets below. There are no telltale sirens or flashing lights to break the monotony, and when he stretches his hearing to its furthest capacity, there’s nothing other than the quiet murmur of tires against pavement. 

A restless tug hooks behind Castiel’s navel and he wants nothing more than to be gone. The promise in Dean’s eyes… Castiel is old enough not to hope for the world, but he does anyway. 

Maybe tonight he’ll be able to speak around the lump that’s been clogging his throat for years. Maybe he’ll finally be able to tell Dean exactly what he thinks: that he’s smart, and compassionate, and funny, and quite possibly the most wonderful person he’s ever met. 

The faintest sound of a scuffle knocks Dean away from his thoughts. Castiel strains his ears, and then he hears it again. There’s a faint sound that’s abruptly cut off, followed by the slightly hollow sound of flesh hitting brick. 

“Oh, damn it all,” Castiel sighs. His wings unfurl from his back and beat against the air once, launching him into the sky. The night air flows cool over his skin for a moment and then he’s plummeting through the air. 

His feet hit the ground with what would be a bone-jarring thump for anyone else. Castiel feels the shock of landing travel through his shins, but it’s a temporary sensation, easily displaced. His feet splash through a small puddle as he steps forward to view the scene. 

Just another petty crime in a series of petty crimes. A middle-aged woman cowers against the wall while a shadowy figures menaces her with a knife. It’s a crime so cliche that Castiel almost feels sorry for the city’s class of criminals. He would feel sorrier if it didn’t mean that his job was made immeasurably easier. 

His hand closes on the man’s shoulder. It’s the work of a moment for Castiel to flick his wrist and toss him aside. The sound of a body hitting the pavement echoes through the narrow alley. Castiel uses the time he’s earned to turn to the woman. “Get out of here,” he commands. Power snaps from his skin, and she wordlessly nods before she scampers out of the alley, wobbling on high heels. 

Castiel spares a moment to look after her and ensure that she gets to safety. Even though it’s a small victory, it’s enough to spark a tiny glow of pride in his chest. He might not be able to save the whole world, but he can save a life here, and a life here. Maybe by the end of it, he’ll have saved enough lives to tilt the scales in his favor. 

He turns around to face the would-be criminal, and--

Castiel’s hand flies up to his mouth as pain bursts through his body. Sparks fly behind his eyelids. The brick wall is harsh against his skin as he staggers back. 

“What the…” he begins, and then spits blood. “What the  _ fuck?”  _

He blinks the stars out of his eyes and tries to find his opponent. When he does, he stops. 

Was he always this tall? 

The would-be criminal looms large, at least six feet. A wide grin splits his face in a grotesque parody of friendship. “I’ve been waiting a while to meet you, Seraph. I was wondering if you were ever going to catch up. What does a person have to do to get your attention?” 

Recognition sparks in Castiel’s stomach. There’s only one class of people who could hit him hard enough to make him bleed, and out of those, only one has been seen in his city. “Shapeshifter?” 

Shifter’s shoulder lifts in a shrug. “It’s not as cool of a name as Seraph, but to be fair, you’ve got those pretty wings.” 

Shifter’s eyes lock on Castiel. His shoulders hunch. After a second, two large wings sprout from his back. White teeth gleam in the sickly glow of the streetlights. “Hey, look at that. Now we’re twins.” 

A low, sick twist of foreboding grips Castiel’s stomach. This is so far beyond his purview of what’s normal. Usually, he punches them, he breaks a wrist or a kneecap, someone calls the police, and he’s gone before the first sirens arrive. 

But now… Pain is a low, dull throb coursing through his body. His breathing has a strange hitch, and blood drips steadily out of his nose. He can taste it, hot and coppery, in the back of his throat. 

For one of the the first times since he got his powers, the cold flame of fear licks down his spine. 

“What’s the matter Seraph? Is your pond a little bit bigger, or are you just a little bit smaller?” Shifter’s knuckles crack as he curls his fingers into a fist. “Maybe you should have spent a little more time doing your job and a little less time hitting up the nightclubs, huh?” 

Castiel swings, but he never connects. Shifter’s arm crashes into his, knocking Castiel off-balance. He lurches back a few steps to regain his footing, but he’s not in time. A fist slams into his solar plexus, cutting off his breath and causing him to crumple to his knees. Once he’s there, it’s only too easy for Shifter to land a kick to his face. 

Castiel’s head spins as he stares up at the lights. He can’t get enough air into his lungs, and panic scrabbles through his mind. Damp soaks through his hair, and Castiel doesn’t know if it’s because he’s in a puddle or if it’s blood. 

He’s going to die here, Castiel realizes, muted horror seeping through his body. He’s going to die in a filthy alley, and he’ll never have told Dean that he loves him. 

His wings beat against the dirt and grime of the alley, trying their best to get him back on his feet. Castiel can’t help but think of an animal in its death throes. 

After a massive effort, his wings manage to push him up off the ground and onto his feet. Castiel lurches, but he still maintains his balance. 

He might die in this alley, but like hell he’ll die on his back, staring up at someone. 

Shifter laughs. “Look at you. This is the city’s defender? This is the person who’s going to save everyone?” 

Castiel spits out a mouthful of blood. “What do you  _ want?”  _ he asks. 

A long moment passes while Shifter looks at him. Finally, he spreads his arms wide and looks up towards the sky. “Everything,” he answers, a laugh at the end of the word. “I want  _ everything.”  _

He turns back to Castiel, and Castiel… 

His wings beat once, and then twice, and then he’s streaking through the air in a wild retreat. His heart pounds in his chest, adrenaline turning his mouth sour. In all his life, he’s never run from a fight. He’s never… But he’s running now, in a desperate, terrified rout. 

Castiel spares one second to look over his shoulder to make sure he’s not being followed. Perhaps Shifter’s wings are just for show, or perhaps he decided that Castiel wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, Castiel is alone in the sky. 

He should go to base. His base is secure and safe. From there, he could call Balthazar and they could come up with a plan. As annoying and terrible as Balthazar is, when it comes to his actual job, he’s scarily efficient. 

But it’s not to the base that Castiel runs. 

His wings take him to the balcony of his and Dean’s apartment, and there he collapses. His power snaps off like someone flipped a switch, and Castiel barely has enough strength to drag himself to his feet. He fumbles for the latch to the door, hoping that Dean hasn’t decided to lock it. 

The door swings open, and almost immediately hands are pulling at him. Castiel tries to jerk away, but the hands are persistent. They’re attached to a frantic Dean, who helps him into the living room. 

“Holy shit, Cas, what the fuck happened? Jesus, I can’t… Is anything broken? What the hell happened?” 

Hands pry at his face and push at his shoulders, and Castiel knows that Dean doesn’t mean to be harsh, but every touch sends pain blooming through his body. “Dean, stop,” Castiel begs. “It’s too much-” 

“Fuck, Cas, do I need to call Balthazar? Do we need to go to the hospital? I don’t know what to… Just tell me what to do.” 

Black crowds at the edge of Castiel’s vision. He gropes for his power to try and heal himself, but it’s gone. His wings are gone, his power is absent, and everything that makes him special has vanished, leaving him just… Just Castiel Novak. Just Cas. 

Castiel looks at Dean through increasingly blurry vision. He blinks slowly, and then smiles. “Your eyes are just…” 

Castiel never gets a chance to finish the thought. His eyes close and the world plunges into darkness. 

  
  


**~*~*~*~*~***


	6. Chapter 6

**~*~*~*~*~***

  
  


Panic beats an unyielding drum in Dean’s chest. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t… 

Cas is on their couch,  _ unconscious,  _ and Dean doesn’t know what to do.

He presses his finger against the bolt of Cas’ jaw. His panic only abates slightly when he feels the steady thrumming of Cas’ pulse underneath his fingertips. It’s difficult to be positive about anything when Cas’ whole face is a mess of blood and gore. Dean’s stomach turns to look at it, but he takes a deep breath and steels himself. 

He can do this for Cas. 

He rushes into the bathroom and drags out their first-aid kit (used almost exclusively by Dean in the past two years), along with a washcloth, before running back to the living room. The whole venture takes thirty seconds, and those thirty seconds away from Cas are excruciating. Luckily, Cas hasn’t moved from his spot. Dean takes a few more moments to watch the rise and fall of Cas’ chest and then he gets to work. 

Most of the blood on Castiel’s face is easily wiped away. Once it’s cleaned off, the tight band of anxiety around Dean’s chest loosens slightly. The wounds aren’t nearly as bad as the presence of the blood led him to believe. Cas’ cheek is split, as is his lip, and he has a gash running along his hairline. None of these wounds are life-threatening, and Dean thinks that Cas’ powers might already be working to heal him, though they’re not working fast enough. 

Dean puts a butterfly bandage on Castiel’s forehead and disinfects every other cut. Cas groans unhappily at the sting of the medicine, but he doesn’t wake. Dean spends perhaps a disproportionate amount of time working on Cas’ face because he doesn’t want to think about anything below his neck. He should. From Cas’ labored breathing, Dean suspects that he has several ribs which are cracked, if not broken. Dean  _ should _ look at his torso, but there are several problems with that scenario. For one, Dean doesn’t actually know how Cas’ suit works. There’s no convenient zippers or buttons, and he doesn’t think either Cas or Balthazar would appreciate him cutting it. 

The second, and more pressing reason in Dean’s mind, is that he doesn’t want to perve on his unconscious best friend. 

He passes over Cas’ torso and focuses on making him comfortable. When he shifts Cas to put a pillow underneath his head, Cas’ face creases with displeasure, but he still doesn’t wake. “Come on, Cas,” Dean murmurs, stroking his thumb over the edge of the bandage on his forehead. “Wake up, buddy.” 

True to form, Cas ignores his request. His eyes remain stubbornly closed, while his breathing never changes from the deep rasp which sparks anxiety in Dean’s chest. He’s  _ never  _ seen Cas hurt like this, and he’s overcome with the desire to tuck himself around Cas and protect him from everything that might hurt him. 

Supers die. It’s an unfortunate reality of the world, but Dean’s tried to ignore it. Now the truth of the matter is laying on his couch, unconscious and bloody. 

He never told Cas how he feels. Cas could have  _ died,  _ and he would have done so without knowing that Dean’s been in love with him ever since junior year of college. 

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he whispers. His fingers itch to push into Cas’ hair, but he holds himself back. “I should have told you about the house. I should have told you… Shit.” The sheer weight of everything which he should have told Cas is enough to stun him. 

“You have to wake up soon,” Dean tells Cas. “There’s a lot I have to tell you.” 

\---

The twenty minutes that it takes Cas to regain consciousness are some of the longest in his life. They’re rivaled only by the two hours which Dean spent in the waiting room while Sam’s broken arm was being set. The relief which courses through him at seeing Cas’ eyes flutter open is the same relief that came once he saw Sam coming through the doors with a shiny blue cast on his arm. 

“Dean?” Cas asks. He tries to sit up, fails, and winces in pain. “What are you… What time is it?” 

“It’s not late. It’s just… Well, it’s one in the morning. Maybe it’s a little late.” 

“You should be in bed. You’ve got work in the morning.” 

“Yeah, and leave you passed out on the couch? That’s a pretty shitty move, Cas.” 

The band of tension relaxes yet more at the small smile on Cas’ face. “Well, don’t blame me when you bite someone’s head off tomorrow.” 

Dean grins as he perches on the arm of the couch. “Are you kidding? These are teenagers. They’re more likely to bite my head off, chew it up, and spit it out than they are anything else.” 

“Well, then I’d hate for you to piss them off. That’s going to make a mess if they do that.” Cas finally manages to push himself up into a seated position. He winces and rubs at his chest. 

“Are you healing?” Dean asks after a few moments. 

Cas thinks for a moment, and then nods. “Slower than usual, but yes. I… There was a fight,” he finishes. His fingers curl around the blanket Dean haphazardly tossed over his legs. “My powers were taxed to their limits, and I think it’s taking them a second to recover.” 

Dean tries to bite back the question, but it comes out anyway. “What happened? I’ve never seen you get hurt that badly before.” 

Castiel glances down at his lap. He twists the blanket in his fingers. “Don’t worry about it,” he finally says. “It was nothing.” 

Dean blinks. Disbelief floods through him until, “Are you fucking kidding me?” topples out of his mouth. 

Cas glances sharply at him. Dean ignores him. “You were barely upright when you came back here. You were covered in  _ blood!  _ You were  _ unconscious.  _ And you want to say that it was  _ nothing?”  _

“I meant that it was…” Cas takes a deep breath and stubbornly sets his jaw. “It was nothing you could help me with.” 

Though Cas’ aim wasn’t to hurt Dean, he still flinches at the words. “I’m not saying that you get me a spandex suit so that I can go out there and punch the baddies. I’m saying that you… Just  _ talk  _ to me, Cas. Let me know what’s going on. I want to help you.” 

Something passes over Cas’ face, there and gone before Dean can determine the meaning of it. “Dean,” Cas starts, and from the tone of his voice Dean can tell that Cas isn’t going to say anything he wants to hear. 

“You can’t help me. You’re just a man.” 

The words reach out and slap Dean across the face. He gapes, even as his brain is processing the wound. “What did you say?” 

Cas’ jaw twitches, but he holds firm. “You heard me,” he says. “You can’t help me.” 

“No, the other part.” Dean should stop. Nothing good is going to come from this. But he can’t stop picking at the scab of the wound which Castiel has given him. “The part about how I’m not a Super so I can’t help you.” 

“Dean, that’s not…” Castiel swallows and then tosses aside the blanket. When he stands, he carefully schools his face so that no hint of an expression slips through. “How would you help me, Dean? What could you do?” 

“I don’t know, but you could let me  _ try  _ at least!” 

Frustration rises thick and bitter in Dean’s throat. Even as he protests, he senses the futility in it. What could he do to help Cas? How could he ever be considered good enough for Cas? 

“Dean, we’re on separate paths. And where I’m going… You can’t go.” 

If the first words were a slap in the face, this last one is a knife in the heart. It’s a mortal wound, and Dean staggers underneath it. He knows, the second Cas finishes speaking, that they’ll never recover from this. All those late nights in college, the bar nights, the times when he would look at Cas while he was getting his Master’s and  _ Cas, I can’t fucking do this, it’s too hard, I’m too stupid, I don’t know what I was thinking,  _ the times when Cas would come home bursting at the seams from excitement because one of his events at the library had succeeded without a hitch. All of those moments, and now they’re nothing more than dust in the wind. 

“Well,” Dean finally says, speaking past the lump in his throat. It feels like there’s someone else saying the words, but it’s his voice that comes out with, “If you think we’re on such separate paths, then it might not be a good idea for us to live together anymore.” 

Cas’ wide eyes fix on him. For the first time in this conversation, he looks scared. “Dean, that’s not what I… Dean, I didn’t mean--” 

“No, I think it’s pretty damn clear what you meant.” Cas doesn’t think they can be on the same path. Cas doesn’t  _ want him.  _ “My only question is, how long have you been holding that back? I mean, it must have been torture for you, hanging out with your lame college friend while your fabulous, ritzy life calls.” 

“Dean, if you would just let me explain--” 

“No, Cas, you know what? I think you’ve said enough.” His heart is ripping apart. It’s shredding right in front of him, and all he can do is walk back to his room. 

The door closing behind him feels like he’s cutting a thread. And all Dean can do is mourn what never was. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Castiel’s ribs are still aching, but this is worse. This is a wound that he won’t recover from, and worst of all, he’s one who dealt it. 

Dean walks away, and Castiel doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t even know that he could. He saw the shift in Dean’s expression, the betrayal and hurt. Some situations don't have a solution. 

All he wanted was for Dean to be safe. The second Dean suggested that he help him, Castiel’s chest had seized in terror. He couldn’t bring Dean into that world. He would get killed or worse. He had to keep Dean safe, and if keeping Dean safe meant that Castiel had to hurt his feelings, then that was a price he was willing to pay. 

He just didn’t think that it would be this bad. 

How did it get this bad? When he left Sam’s house, he had every intention of finishing out the night by confessing his feelings to Dean. Instead, he’s witness to the destruction of his and Dean’s friendship. 

Castiel wants to scream and wail. He wants to run after Dean and beg for forgiveness. He wants to find Shifter and splatter his brains over the sidewalk. He wants to go to the base and tear apart his government contract in front of Balthazar’s face. He wants to be able to be the Castiel of two years ago whose biggest problem was trying to find enough funding to cover the after-school programs in the library. 

Castiel has long since realized that he doesn’t get what he wants. He gets off the couch and ignores the twinges of pain that shoot through his body with every step as he walks back to his bedroom. Closing his door feels like a surrender. It feels like the end. 

\---

Castiel doesn’t sleep. His eyes eventually close, and his exhausted body forces him into something resembling the state, but he finds no rest. When the first rays of sunlight peek through his window, Castiel is awake to see them. 

He’s waiting to hear the first sounds of life from Dean’s room. It takes a little longer than it usually does, but at around 7:45, Castiel hears the pipes kick on in Dean’s shower. 

He doesn’t often use his powers for ill-gotten gains, but there are some times where it’s useful. He changes into a sweater and jeans and flies to the nearest corner cafe. The cashier looks at him with a mixture of awe and confusion, especially when Castiel orders two coffees and a wide selection of their pastries. With his order in hand, he flies back to the apartment just in time to hear the shower cut off. 

He almost stumbles face first into the counter (his powers aren’t fully recovered from last night), but he manages to get the food set up. Just in time, as Dean emerges from his bedroom already dressed for work. 

“I got you breakfast,” Castiel offers. He offers coffee to Dean. 

Dean doesn’t take it. 

Not to be deterred, Castiel continues. “They had those apple turnovers that you like. And the cinnamon scones. And I even got a sprinkle doughnut, but only one because you said that you were trying--” 

“Cas.” Dean doesn’t sound angry. He just sounds tired. 

Castiel wishes he sounded angry. 

“Dean, about last night.” Castiel starts speaking quicker, terrified that Dean is going to cut him off and then he’ll have lost his last chance. “I’m sorry. I know what I said was--” 

“Cas, I’ve got a house picked out. It’s on the edge of the city, in the suburbs. I’m going to put an offer on it today.” 

If the words last night were a mortal blow, these are a death knell. Castiel gapes at Dean. “Is this because of last night?” he finally asks. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while. You and I… Well, it’s like you said last night. We’ve been moving on separate paths for a while.” 

“Dean--” 

“Cas. Look, last night… It’s been coming for a while. One of us needed to say it, and I guess it was you.” Dean’s chuckle is devoid of mirth. “I guess that’s why you’re the superhero and I’m just the dumb friend, right?” 

“Dean--” 

“Look, Cas, it’s fine. Really. I just… It’ll be probably another month, and then I’ll be out of your hair. It’s for the best.” 

And after that, what can Castiel say? He says nothing as Dean walks out of the apartment, leaving him alone with his coffee and his pastries. 

And there’s nothing Castiel can say to change anything. 

\---

Much to his surprise, Castiel finds Balthazar at the base. 

He’s scrolling through the news feeds, so quickly that Castiel’s eyes can’t catch individual headlines. When Castiel enters, with his trademark flutter of wings, he doesn’t blink. It takes a full thirty seconds for Balthazar to acknowledge him, and even then it’s only a snide, “I was wondering when you were going to remember that we paid you to do a job.” 

“I’ve been patrolling. I’ve been looking. And last night, I had the privilege of getting the shit kicked out of me by Shifter.”

Even with that announcement, Balthazar doesn’t deign to look at him. Foreboding grips Castiel’s heart. 

“Well, if he kicked the shit out of you, then he had a busy night.” Balthazar slides the tablet across the table. Castiel catches it just in time to see the headline. 

**_Night Guard Found Dead at Vault; Shapeshifter to Blame??_ **

“There’s a picture,” Balthazar says shortly. 

Castiel’s heart thunders in his chest as he scrolls down. The picture takes a moment to load, and when it does, Castiel can’t breathe. 

The picture shows the exterior of one of the city’s banks. Nothing about the bank itself is remarkable. If Castiel were walking past it, then he wouldn’t notice it. What makes it remarkable are the words spray painted (god, Castiel hopes that it’s spray paint and nothing else) on the pristine, white brick. 

_ SERAPH COME OUT AND PLAY _

“So, it looks like we’ve got a problem,” Balthazar says. 

**~*~*~*~*~***


	7. Chapter 7

**~*~*~*~*~***

  
  


Dean doesn’t make it until noon before his regrets slam into him like a ton of bricks. He told Cas about the house.  _ He told Cas about the house.  _

The look on Cas’ face when Dean told him… He’s been friends with Cas for years and he’s never seen Cas look like that. Not when Cas’ father died, not when Cas got the rejection letter from his dream job, not when Bart dumped Cas two weeks before graduation. He’s never seen devastation written on Cas’ face like a topographic map. 

He saw it this morning, when he effectively crushed any hope of a future he and Cas might have had. 

In between appointments, Dean sends a quick text to Cas.  **_sorry about this morning. i think i was a dick. can we talk later?_ **

Two clients later and his text is still unanswered. 

The pasta salad he brought for lunch looks about as appetizing as uncooked worms and smells about the same. With a sigh, Dean pushes the Tupperware away and reaches for his phone. Cas hasn’t answered. 

He taps his finger on the screen.  _ Tap.  _ Hurt cracking Cas’ face open.  _ Tap.  _ The rust-red of blood that’s still caught beneath his nails. Cas’ blood.  _ Tap.  _ The deep, throaty sound of Cas’ laughter.  _ Tap.  _

Dean rolls his eyes and grabs his phone. With a few swipes of his thumb, he pulls up Castiel’s name. The phone rings once. And then twice. By the fourth ring, anxiety is building in Dean’s chest. By the sixth and final ring, Dean’s heart is somewhere around his knees. 

Castiel’s voicemail clicks on. It’s the same message he’s had since college, ridiculous and stilted, and Dean loves him so much it makes him dizzy. 

_ “This is Castiel’s voicemail. Make your voice a mail.”  _

After the shock of hearing Cas’ voice, the impersonal beep comes as a surprise. Dean’s heart crawls up his throat and he stammers around it. “Um, hi. Cas. It’s me. Dean. I mean, I guess you knew that.” He releases a shaky breath into the phone and knuckles at his eyes. “Uh, anyway. I just… I wanted to… Fuck. Call me back when you get this. Please.” 

He hangs up and spends the rest of his lunch break systematically working through every curse word he knows. 

Dean spent his teenage years with Bobby Singer. He knows a lot of curse words. 

After lunch, there’s another afternoon session, followed by two hours of typing up his notes. Castiel doesn’t call. 

\---

“I fucked up,” Dean says that night. His phone sits beside him on the couch, a victim to his sloppy fingers, which are unable to hold up a phone. “Sam, I fucked up.” 

“Give him some time,” Sam urges. His words are a little less kind and a little more rote, probably because this is the fourth time he’s saying them. “Dean, this is Cas. He’ll come back, you know he will.” 

“No, you didn’t see him,” Dean insists. He brings the bottle to his lips, wincing when he slops a mouthful of beer down his neck. He plucks unhappily at his now soaked shirt collar before pushing himself fully upright. “He was… I’ve never seen him like that, Sam. Never.” Dean glances around the empty living room. “He’s not coming back.” 

“Dean.” Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s tone. Any minute now, Sam’s about to start preaching. Sure enough, Sam says, “How much have you had to drink?” 

“Just… three? Four. Four beers.” 

“Jesus, Dean. Didn’t they teach you in all your fancy Psych classes not to use alcohol as a coping mechanism?” 

“Lighten up, Sam. Four beers for our family is like a drop in the bucket. My liver doesn’t wake up for four beers.” 

“You know, our family’s alcoholic tendencies are a weird thing to brag about.” 

“Well, it’s not like I can brag about our ancestral tendency to do… um, anything else. So alcoholism it is.” 

Sam’s sigh contains enough bitchiness to float the Titanic safely through the harbor. “Whatever. Just don’t hound him.” Dean sputters, and Sam speaks over him. “I know you, and I know what you do when you’re panicking. You’re going to call him and call him, and if he doesn’t answer, then you’re going to get frustrated, and you’re going to get mean. I’m asking you to  _ not  _ do that.” 

Dean thinks about the six texts and two voicemails he’s left for Cas. “I don’t  _ hound  _ people.” Even to his ears, the protest sounds weak. 

“Just give him some time. You know Cas. He likes to work these things out on his own.” 

“Yeah. Thanks, Sam.” Dean sighs, and then says, “I mean it. Thanks.” 

“Take care of yourself, Dean,” Sam says. 

The call ends, and Dean is left alone in his obscenely large apartment. A single box sits forlornly in the corner of the room. Dean packed all of three DVDs into it before he lost interest and wandered into the kitchen to grab a beer. One beer led to another, which led to a phone call with Sam, which led him here. Dubiously eyeing up the box which started this mess in the first place. It seems stupid to hold a grudge against a banker’s box, but Dean wants nothing more than to kick the shit out of it. 

He looks at his phone. His phone, without eyes, stares back at him. 

Sam’s words echo in his mind.  _ Just don’t hound him.  _

Dean stares at his phone again. 

With a sigh, he reaches out and grabs his phone. By now, calling Cas’ number is an action performed through muscle memory. The sound of empty ringing is, unfortunately, a familiar one. Castiel’s voicemail kicks on, and once again, Dean is left with nothing of import to say. 

“Cas.” He winces when his too-loud voice cracks across the phone. If that’s not a clear sign that his ancestors are disappointed with him from getting tipsy over four beers, then he doesn’t know what is. He tries to pitch his voice at a lower pitch. “Cas. Look. This whole thing is stupid. I… I want to talk to you. Call me back.” 

Dean swallows. “Cas, please. I fucked up. I know I did. Just call me back? Please?” 

He ends the call with a vicious punch of his thumb. “Fuck,” he sighs, running his fingers through his hair. 

He doesn’t need to conjure up a picture of Sam’s bitchface to know that he just made a stupid decision.  _ Don’t hound him,  _ Sam said, and then Dean turned around and left Cas a drunk message. 

A small, bitter part of him rears its head. It whispers that it doesn’t matter what message he leaves for Cas because Cas isn’t listening to them anyway. Why else hasn’t Cas responded? 

He stares at his phone. 

Cas never calls. 

\---

By day three of radio silence, Dean is desperate. 

He does that which he has never done before and calls the number clipped to the front of the fridge. The phone rings three times before it picks up. 

“Well, well, well,” Balthazar croons, sounding like a particularly campy Bond villain. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Winchester?” 

“You have my number?” The second the question is out of his mouth, Dean rolls his eyes at his own stupidity. Definitely not the question he intended to ask. 

Judging from the arid sarcasm in Balthazar’s voice, he’s not impressed with Dean’s intellectual capacities. “I work for the government, darling. Do you really think that it’s hard for me to get your number? Now, if only you could transfer that power from me to some of those lovely ladies you flirt with so shamelessly, so I could get back to my actual job.” 

“Don’t worry, Bal, you’re not really my type.” 

“Dean, did you have a purpose for calling me or did you just want to flirt with me?” 

“Where’s Cas? He’s not…” Dean bites his lower lip. “I need to talk to Cas.” 

“Oh, what’s the matter? The umbilical cord not stretching far enough for your liking? Missing your boyfriend too much?” 

“Just for once in your life, could you not be a giant tool? I mean, just for once, could you be an actual person?” Dean clenches his fist. His knuckles crack with the desire to bury themselves into Balthazar’s face. 

“Well, I appreciate your apparent acceptance of my godlike status, but I have some sad news for you. I don’t have your boytoy in my pocket.” 

It takes Dean a moment to understand Balthazar’s statement. When he does, mingled terror and fury tear through his chest. “Are you telling me that you don’t know where Cas is?” 

“I’ve got a general idea, but I’m sure you know by now that our Castiel doesn’t exactly value check-ins. He’s around somewhere.” 

Red flashes in front of Dean’s eyes. “There’s a Super out there gunning for Cas. You didn’t see him after that asshole got through with him. I did. He wants to  _ kill  _ Cas, and now you’re telling me that you  _ don’t know where he is?”  _

“Well, if he was dead then I’m sure someone would have dropped a memo about it. Anyway, shouldn’t you know where he is? I thought you too were joined at the… you know. Everything.” 

The heavy insinuation in Balthazar’s voice brings a hot blush to Dean’s cheeks. “Fuck you,” he snaps. 

He deserves the pithy “Oh, well said,” from Balthazar, but his fury grows when that’s all Balthazar says. 

The silence stretches long past the time when it’s uncomfortable. Both Dean and Balthazar are stubborn, but Balthazar has the advantage of being an unfeeling asshole, while Dean… 

“I need to talk to him,” Dean finally says, his voice so tiny as to be almost unintelligible. “Please. I know you know where he is, so can you please just put me through.” 

“Actually, I don’t know where he is, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. For once in his life, Cassie’s focusing on what matters instead of worrying how many times you batted your eyelashes at him the previous night. You have been  _ nothing  _ but a weight around his ankle from Day One, and I’ve got to say, I am  _ thrilled  _ to see him flying high without the noose of Dean Winchester hanging around his neck.” 

“You’re a bastard,” Dean breathes. Balthazar makes some irrelevant noises, but for once in this pompous ass’ life, the situation isn’t all about him. “No, you listen to me, you puffed up douchebag. You don’t know the  _ first  _ thing about Cas; you never did. You never knew him before you assholes got your claws into him. You turned him into… Cas is  _ good,”  _ Dean finishes. The lump in his throat has jagged edges that leave him bleeding. “He’s the best person in the world and you turned him into a fucking joke. He’s…” 

The lump grows as Dean thinks about the classes he shared with Cas, the all-nighters, the laughs. His stupid sweater-vests, his dumbass cardigans, the reading glasses that he used to wear late at night. His messy hair, his absurd love of bee mugs, his compassion. And then he thinks of Cas’ face plastered over the gossip magazines while his arm is over the shoulder of another nameless supermodel. 

“He’s  _ good,”  _ Dean insists. Even to his ears, the words sound pathetic. “No matter what else you made him, he’s the best one among us.” 

He hangs up before he can do something stupid like cry or puke. His phone gets tossed to the furthest corner of the room, probably somewhere near that damned box. “Fuck,” he curses after a moment, running his hand through his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Dean’s legs are wobbly when he gets up from the couch, but they somehow manage to carry him out to the balcony. The cool night air acts as a slap in the face, and the swift breeze brings tears to the corner of his eyes. Dean peers up at the sky. This deep in the city, the stars are hidden behind a hazy glow. It makes Dean mourn for the dark nights of his youth, where the sky was an inky blanket dotted with thousands upon thousands of clear, white stars. 

Dean’s eyes are burning. The wind is strong tonight. He rubs at his eyes and ignores when his knuckles come away wet. He stares at the horizon, hoping for some kind of sign. A white-blue blur across the sky, the sound of wings beating at the air. He looks until his eyelids grow heavy, and still he doesn’t see any hint of Cas. 

“Come on, Castiel,” Dean murmurs, gripping at the railing of the balcony. “Where are you?” 

  
  


\---

By day five, any resentment, frustration, and anger have faded away to be replaced with a lingering sense of dread. Cas’ radio silence has continued. Dean’s been zipping through the TMZ headlines for any hint of his presence, but there’s nothing. The newspapers and blogs aren’t reporting any Seraph activity, and Dean’s called around to Castiel’s regular haunts enough times that Hannah recognizes the sound of his voice. No one’s seen Cas anywhere. 

In desperation, Dean calls his last resort. 

“Seriously, how long does it take you to remember that I’m supposedly your best friend?” Charlie sounds annoyed, but when it’s over the phone Dean doesn’t know if it’s the kind of annoyed that can be smoothed over with popcorn and a marathon of Star Trek: Discovery, or if it’s the kind of annoyed that’s going to give him the cold shoulder for two weeks. 

“Charlie, I fucked up big time.” Dean’s voice starts out strong, but it wobbles at the end. 

“Tell me what happened,” Charlie demands, and Dean does. The story comes out and fits and starts, but it comes out. Dean doesn’t sugarcoat the details. Both he and Cas are unveiled in their terrible glory, their faults and flaws uncovered. He tells Charlie about his revelation of the house, and of Castiel’s words.  _ You’re just a man.  _

When he finishes, Charlie is quiet. Dean knows she’s still on the other end of line because he can hear the tip of her tongue clicking against her teeth. He doesn’t interrupt her, even though he’s shifting in his seat with impatience. 

Finally, Charlie sighs. “Yeah, you fucked up,” she finally says. 

“Wow, thanks. I can’t believe that I waited for twenty minutes to hear you repeat what I told you at the beginning of the conversation.” 

“Cut the attitude, Winchester,” Charlie warns. “I can still kick your ass. Plus, I feel like you can’t be high and mighty at this point.” 

Charlie has a good point, but it doesn’t mean that Dean can’t sulk over it. “I’m really worried about him. I’ve tried to call him and text him. I even called Balthazar for all the good it did me. He’s never… I mean, Cas likes his space sure, but he’s never gone off the radar for this long.” Anxiety rises in Dean’s chest, and he tries to squash it down. It’s a losing battle, but one he has to fight. “Charlie, I think something happened to him.” 

“Dean, if Balthazar can’t find him, I don’t know what I could do. He’s got way more resources than I do.” 

“I’m not sure that Balthazar doesn’t have him locked away in that super secret government bunker somewhere. It would suit that bastard just fine to keep Cas locked away from his friends. Also, you’re  _ Charlie.  _ In a fight between you and the government, I’m putting my money on you, every time.” 

“Don’t butter me up, handmaiden. Flattery gets you nowhere.” Charlie’s words are harsh, but Dean can tell that she’s pleased. “Fine, I’ll see what I can do, but Dean. He’s a Super, and if he doesn’t want to be found, then there might not be a whole hell of a lot I can do.” 

“Look, Charlie, I trust you. Hell, you, Sam, and Eileen might be the only people in this damn city that I do trust. Just see what you can do. And hey. If you run across anyone named Shapeshifter, flag it, would you? And be careful. Tread lightly through this shit. I don’t want…” 

Dean doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t want to put Charlie in harm’s way. If Shapeshifter is capable of turning Cas’ face into hamburger, then he doesn’t want to dream of what they could do to Charlie. 

“Give me a break. You act like I’ve never siphoned money away from the NRA or Roman Enterprises, and they’re both way scarier than hacking some security cameras.” At Dean’s protest, Charlie speaks over him. “I’ll be careful, Dean. Promise. And you’ll be the first person to know if I find anything. I get even a hint of a rumor, and I’ll let you know.” 

“I owe you one, Charlie.” A pause follows his words. “Okay, you can add this favor to the many, many favors that I owe you.” 

“That’s more like it,” Charlie says. Despite his mood, the warmth in her voice makes Dean smile. “I’ll start looking right away, and the second I know something, you’ll know it too. And Dean? Don’t worry. He’s still Cas.” 

Dean thanks her again and hangs up. If Charlie notices that his farewell is lackluster, she doesn’t bother to mention it. 

He trusts Charlie. If there’s anyone who can sift through the thousands of security cameras and find Cas, it’s her. He just can’t stop thinking about the last thing she said to him. 

_ He’s still Cas.  _

Dean hates himself for doubting if that’s true or not. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Lights. Sound. 

Castiel’s world has narrowed the influxes of sensation, and it’s overwhelming. He blinks to try and clear his vision of the lights, but no matter what he does, the lights still arc behind his eyelids. 

Sparks dance along his skin. At first, Castiel thinks he’s imagining the sensation, but when he opens his eyes, he sees the faint blue glow. A quick shift reassures him that his wings aren’t out, but try as he might, he can’t suppress his power. 

Bodies press in around him until he can’t breathe. His lungs are working fine, his brain is still sending all the proper signals, but he can’t draw in a breath. He can’t breathe. 

Castiel stumbles through the gauntlet of bodies until he finally finds some space. Without the hot, smothering crush of bodies pulling him down, he finally manages to get air in his lungs. He greedily sucks at the stagnant air of the club. It reeks of perfume, alcohol, sweat, and sex, but it’s  _ air,  _ and Castiel takes his fill. 

He tries to remember the name of this club and he can’t. After the third, they all start to blend together. Night after night, it’s been a revolving door of lights and bodies until Castiel barely knows which way is up and his power streaks across his skin. 

He really should go home. 

For a second, Castiel feels the phantom beat of his wings. Power streaks across his skin, and he can almost feel the strain in his shoulders as they beat to take him home. 

He can’t go home. 

He can’t go home because if he goes home, he might find it empty. Dean is  _ leaving,  _ and the apartment no longer holds the comfort it once did. He won’t be able to look through the corners without thinking about how Dean used to occupy these rooms. Forget the furniture, Dean was the largest thing in them, and the thought that Castiel could return home to find the apartment empty is like a gaping hole carved in his chest. 

Sobriety steals along the edges of his consciousness, and Castiel hates it. He wants that comforting fog to encompass him until he can’t feel anymore. Until he can’t think. He doesn’t want to think because when he thinks, he thinks about Dean, and when he thinks about Dean, all he wants to do is scream and hit something until it breaks or he does. 

He wants to go home. 

Dean’s called him. Dean’s called him at least once a day for the past five days, but Castiel hasn’t answered. He can’t bear to hear Dean say those words again. 

_ We’ve been moving on separate paths for a while.  _

_ It’s for the best.  _

The notifications on his phone blink at him, but Castiel doesn’t answer. He needs another drink. Why would he want to go home? He doesn’t need anything there. He doesn’t need his bed or his clothing, not when he can have both of those things in Balthazar’s spare room. He doesn’t need Dean, who was buying a house so that he could leave. 

Castiel makes his way to the bar. At the first touch of a body against him, his throat closes with panic, but he manages to thread his way through the crush. The bartender’s eyes flick towards him, and Castiel sees the quick flash of recognition in his eyes. He’s kind enough not to say anything even when Castiel asks for a bottle of top shelf whiskey. 

“Put it on my tab,” Castiel says. He’s not sure whether he even has a tab in this bar, but businesses always seem to find a way to find Balthazar to charge him. 

Balthazar has spent the past five days either ignoring him or being furious with him. “Will you call your boyfriend? He’s calling  _ me,  _ and as much as I enjoy you, I’m not your social secretary,” was what Castiel had heard on the third day. By the fourth day, Balthazar’s minimal good humor had vanished as though it had never been. “Swear to god, Cassie, if I even catch a  _ hint  _ that you’ve gone anywhere that isn’t on patrol, I am  _ clipping  _ your wings.” That threat had lasted for all of thirty seconds, until, with one beat of his wings, Castiel disappeared. 

That had been a day ago. Castiel hasn’t seen or spoken to Balthazar since. Instead, he’s been doing his tour of every club in the city, trying desperately to outrun his own thoughts. It never seems to work. No matter how far he goes, no matter how much he drinks, no matter what he pushes into his body, he can’t escape himself. 

Finding a seat in a place like this is a small miracle. Finding a relatively isolated chair feels like the gods themselves have smiled down upon him. Castiel clutches the bottle close to his chest, though he doesn’t take a drink from it yet. 

“Oh my god.” Castiel startles when he hears the high, feminine voice almost directly by his ear. He pulls back slightly, but the woman follows him. With Dean’s semi-frequent complaints of his invasions of personal space, he wonders how Dean would react to this woman. 

“It’s you,” the woman gushes, ignoring any hint of Castiel’s discomfort as she settles on the arm of his chair. “You’re him! Seraph, I mean. Oh my god.” 

Her mouth splits a little too wide in a grin that seems almost predatory, and Castiel suddenly realizes that he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be in Balthazar’s spare room, trying to ignore the suspicious noises coming from down the hall. He doesn’t even really want to be in his current apartment, with its spacious emptiness chosen specifically so it would impress Dean. 

He wants to be in the apartment that he and Dean shared when they first graduated college, with its carpet going threadbare around the edges, with the leaky kitchen sink, and the strange stain on the bathroom tile. He and Dean filled that space and made it their own. 

“You’re mistaken,” Castiel mumbles. He tries to get up from his chair, but a firm hand planted in the middle of his chest forces him back down. 

Startled and a little winded, it takes Castiel a moment too long to realize that the force holding him down to the chair can’t possibly be human in nature. His heart beats hard against his sternum once, and then twice. He looks up at the woman’s face. 

“Shapeshifter.” 

At the name, the woman grins. Castiel knows now that it’s a predator’s grin, the one that a shark gives just before it moves in for the kill. 

“So here I am, looking for the protector of the city in the alleys and police stations of the city, wondering why the hell I can’t find hide or hair of him. So imagine my shock when I find the city’s hero boozing it up in the club.” Shifter’s hand presses on his chest with almost crushing force as she leans forward. “Look at you,” she sneers. “You’re stoned out of your mind right now.” 

Castiel’s mouth works, but he can’t find any defense for himself. Shifter’s eyes glitter maliciously in the dark lights of the club. 

“You’re pathetic,” she sneers. “Everyone in the city’s counting on you, and what are you doing? Drinking? Whoring? You’re supposed to be some great hero, but you’re  _ nothing.”  _

Shifter’s fingers crawl up his chest to wrap around his throat, and Castiel is frozen. He can’t even move to defend himself as Shifter’s fingers squeeze just lightly enough to make his breath stutter in his throat. 

_ This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.  _

“Face it,  _ Castiel,”  _ and never has the sound of his name caused such a visceral reaction of terror, “you’re never going to find me. You’re never going to stop me. You can’t do a  _ damn  _ thing, so think about that. Meanwhile, while you’re here trying to drink your brains out, I’m going to be going after  _ everything  _ you hold dear.” 

Castiel’s heart freezes in his chest before it starts beating again. Shifter’s smile grows: from where her thumb is pressed on his neck, she can feel the rabbit-quick beat of his pulse. 

“That’s right,  _ Castiel.”  _ Derision drips off Shifter’s tongue as she leans in close. Her lips brush his as she whispers, “I’m going to rip him apart, limb from limb, unless you can get there first.” 

With a sudden movement, Shifter releases Castiel, but he can still feel her fingers around his throat. He gasps, but even then doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough air. “Tick tock, Seraph,” Shifter sneers at him. “Tick. Tock.” 

She turns and walks into the crowd. It takes Castiel a moment too long to jump to his feet, but eventually he does. The bottle slips from his grasp to shatter upon the floor, but Castiel ignores the glass and puddle alike. He rushes out of the corner to try and find Shifter in the crowd, but it’s hopeless. The dance floor is a sea of writhing bodies, indistinguishable from one another in the dim lighting, and Shifter can look like whoever she wants. 

_ Tick tock.  _

Terror surges in him as he thinks of Dean’s laughing face, his kind features turned to terror… 

“No,” Castiel breathes. 

With his brain half-addled from all the garbage he’s imbibed in the past days, his powers are slow to come. It takes him several seconds of hard concentration, enough to make a bright, stabbing pain arise in the center of his forehead, but eventually, Castiel’s wings unfurl from his back. When they do, there are gasps and shouts from all over the club. The unmistakable sound of hundreds of camera shutters clicking reaches Castiel’s ears, and he knows that within minutes dozens of blogs will have his picture plastered over their pages. 

Let them. Let Balthazar scream, let him issue all the threats he wants. Let Sam message him with thinly veiled remonstrances about his responsibilities, let him disappoint the whole damn city if he has to. 

Just let Dean be all right. 

Castiel’s wings beat at the air. It takes him two tries, but he manages to launch himself into the ether. 

\---

Castiel has never tried to fly while inebriated, and now he understands why. Normally, traveling comes in the blink of an eye for him. He thinks about where he wants to be, his wings come out, and then he’s there. But now, he falters through the air, dipping and swerving. At one point, he actually plummets through the air, and for one heart-stopping moment, he thinks he might fall all the way to earth. Thankfully, his wings beat again to propel him through the air. 

_ Dean, Dean, Dean  _ beats in his head like a klaxon alarm, and Castiel hurtles through the night. Each second that ticks past is a second lost, is a second that Dean might… 

There are dozens of places where Dean might be, but Castiel has only one destination in mind. He streaks through the night, desperation coursing through him with every beat of his heart, until finally, the lights in front of him are familiar. 

In his current state, Castiel doesn’t care about making a discrete landing. He crashes into the kitchen, stumbling forward to catch himself against the kitchen island. In the background, a glass crashes to the ground. Castiel blinks sluggishly when he hears the familiar voice cursing. 

“Jesus Christ, Cas, what the fuck? You disappear for almost a damn week and then you show up…” 

Even though he sounds angry, Castiel can pick up on the worry in Dean’s voice. His heart, which had been doing its level best to try to escape, finally calms into its normal rhythm. 

Dean is here. Dean is safe. 

And as long as that is true, then nothing else matters.

**~*~*~*~*~*~***


	8. Chapter 8

**~*~*~*~*~*~***

Dean thought he was over it. He really did. For five days, he’s been calling Cas and leaving him messages, desperate to get in touch with him. For five days, he’s feared the worst, dreaming up nightmare scenarios where Cas’ body gets dragged out of an alley, or worse, is plastered across the front page of the papers as a grisly trophy for Shifter. He’s made himself sick with worrying, dragged Sam and Charlie both into it, and even asked  _ Balthazar  _ for help, and for what? For Cas to just plop into the middle of the kitchen without warning? 

Not only that, but the second after Cas pops into existence, Dean can smell the booze  _ wafting  _ off of him. He knows that when it comes to lecturing others about their alcohol use, he’s on thin ice, but that’s another tally mark against Cas on an already extensive list. Cas’ clothes are rumpled, like he’s either been sleeping in them or he’s just made his way through a crowd, and sweat dots along his forehead and dampens his hair. When Dean catches his eyes, he recoils with a sense of fury. Cas’ eyes are glassy and his pupils are huge circles surrounded by a thin corona of blue. 

“Are you fucking  _ high _ right now?” Dean demands. 

Cas blinks slowly at him. He takes a little too long to answer the question, which is really all the answer Dean needs. “No? I don’t think so. Not anymore.” 

“Goddammit, Cas,” Dean curses, without any real heat in his voice. He’d always had his suspicions--it’s impossible that someone goes to that many parties without being offered something at least once--but he never saw Cas after any of the parties, so he had no way of confirming his suspicions. 

And if he’s going to be honest with himself, he always thought that Cas was just… just  _ better  _ than anyone else. It’s an unfair thought to Cas and everyone else, but Dean can scour the disappointment from his mind. 

“Dean, we have to…” Cas sways a little, his eyes fluttering, before he straightens. The soft blue glow of his power fluctuates, dimming at first before it returns with a brightness that forces Dean to squint just so he can see him. “You’re in danger.” 

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, all right. Sure.” 

“Dean!” Cas grabs onto his upper arm with bruising force. Dean is forced to whirl around to face Cas, and when he does, he instinctively flinches back. Cas’ eyes are wide and wild, his expression close to fury. “Listen to me! Shifter knows, she…” Cas blinks and the wildness in his expression fades, to be replaced with something closer to awe. “You’re the most important thing.” 

Dean is furious. He’s tired of feeling like Cas’ favorite toy, to be picked up when he’s bored and tossed aside the moment something better comes along. He’s hurt by Cas’ seeming indifference, and he’s beyond angry that Cas has returned with the stench of vodka and someone else’s perfume on him. 

But Dean is weak, and when Cas repeats, “It’s you, Dean. You’re the most important thing,” all of his anger and resentment fades away as though they never existed. 

Dean’s heart thumps in his chest, so hard he can feel it through his bones. He won’t allow himself to hope. He’s hoped for so much, for so long, and every time, he’s been disappointed. “Cas, what’s happening?” 

“Shifter, the Shapeshifter, she was at the club I was at. She said… She said she would destroy the most important thing, and that’s  _ you,  _ Dean.” 

Something painful twists around Dean’s chest. He wants so badly to believe, but then Cas shifts and he gets another waft of alcohol. 

“Cas, you’re drunk.” He says it as gently as he can, but Cas’ face still falls. “Look, how long has it been since you slept? Like a good night’s sleep?” When Cas doesn’t reply, Dean nods decisively. “Sleep it off, and then in the morning, you can tell me whatever it was you wanted me to know.” 

“No,” Cas protests, even as Dean gently maneuvers him towards his bedroom. “Shifter  _ knows,  _ Dean, she…” 

“Haven’t you told me how safe this apartment is? I promise, I won’t leave until you’re awake. And after that, if you still want to talk…” Dean takes a deep breath and tries to squash the hope flowering in his chest. “If you still want to talk, then I’ll listen.” 

That mollifies Cas enough for Dean to push him into his room. Once inside, Cas turns around. His movements are slower and sloppy, as though he’s barely clinging to consciousness. Without adrenaline fueling him and with the drain his powers take on his body, it’s probably all Castiel can do to remain standing. Still, there’s determination in his jaw as he meets Dean’s eyes. “You won’t leave?” 

“I promise, Cas. I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

That final promise makes all the fight seep out of Castiel’s shoulders. Already, his hands tug at the hem of his shirt to pull it up over his head. Quickly, Dean shuts the door, his cheeks flaming red. 

_ Tomorrow morning.  _ A delicious, terrifying anticipation settles in the pit of his stomach. 

It’s so rare that second chances come along. Despite everything that’s between them: Cas’ powers, the house, their own clashing wants and needs, Dean feels the first stirrings of hope. 

He has another chance.

\---

Dean pauses to send a quick text to Charlie. 

**_hey u can pause ur cas search cause guess who came home 2nite?_ **

Her answer comes swiftly. 

**_I mean, I don’t really need to guess because you’re a shit texter when you’re excited._ **

Dean can’t stop his grin from spreading across his face. 

**_shut it bradbury. he says he wants to talk tomorrow. that has to be a good sign right?_ **

**_Coming from either one of you, it’s a damn miracle. Good luck._ **

Dean sends a string of middle-finger emojis interspersed with kissy face emojis. He figures Charlie will figure out what he means. He reaches over the arm of the couch, looking for the cord to charge his phone. Once he’s finished that, he sits on the couch, his knee jiggling up and down as his thoughts crash in his head. 

He’s not naive enough to believe that their problems are solved. Even now, without Cas directly in front of him, Dean can feel his frustration rising. He knows that he and Cas have huge, gaping holes to mend and patch, but for the first time in a week, Dean believes that they can be fixed. He and Cas have fought before, and they’ve always been able to fix it before. Why should this time be any different? 

He hadn’t made the offer on the house. He’d been ready to when he picked up the phone, but when his realtor had asked him the amount he wanted to put down, he’d balked. “You know, I’m just not sure. It’s a big commitment, you know, and I’ve got the practice to worry about…” 

The realtor, no doubt accustomed to clients who got cold feet, sighed. “Well, I’ll hold off on putting an offer down on the house, but if you change your mind, you should let me know sooner rather than later. It’s a good property in a good neighborhood, and it’s not going to sit for long.” 

When he hung up, Dean had known then that he wanted a second chance with Cas, and now, like the universe has answered his prayers, he’s getting one. 

Now, he just needs to figure out what to say so that he keeps a reign on his temper while still managing to voice all of his concerns and frustrations. Cas has a talent of bringing out both the best and worst in him, and Dean doesn’t want this to talk to be like their others, which have disintegrated into little more than a slinging of insults and harsh words. He needs to plan. 

He sets off towards the kitchen, with every intention of writing down a list (if Sam could see him now, then he’d never let him live it down) of everything he wants to tell Cas, but before he can make it there, the door buzzer sounds. 

Dean stops. It’s not horrifically late at night, but it’s late enough that all of his friends know better than to stop by unannounced. Curious, and with a little bit of fear curling around his heart, he punches at the button. “Yeah?” 

(Faintly, he wonders if this will wake Cas up, and then he dismisses the concern. Cas sleeps like the dead even when he’s not exhausted and drunk. With those factors competing, it’ll be a miracle if Cas wakes before ten. He'll definitely have to cancel his morning appointments.)

Dean blinks in surprise when he hears Charlie’s voice, tinny through the speakers. “Hey, it’s me!” 

“Yeah, I can see that. Why are you here?” 

“I found something out when I was doing my search for Cas, and I thought you should see it. Can I come up?” 

Maybe it’s because Dean’s still reeling with Cas’ surprise, but for whatever reason, Charlie's request strikes him as slightly bizarre. “This couldn’t wait until tomorrow? Or, you know, be an email?” 

“Winchester, you should know by now. Eyes and ears everywhere. Come on, buzz me in, would you? It’s cold, and your doorman is looking at me weird.” 

“If it’s Cliff, then he looks at everyone weird. But you are pretty funny-looking.” 

Dean pushes the buzzer to allow Charlie in the front doors. There’s still something squirming in the pit of his stomach that he’s not wild about, but he pushes the worry aside. It’s just because this is breaking his routine, and Dean has never enjoyed that. 

The nervous energy makes him pace around the room, even when his buzzer rings again with the question from Cliff. It seems stupid, but it’s one of the redundant safety practices which make this, as Dean pointed out earlier in the night, one of the safest places in the city. Dean informs Cliff that yes, that is Charlie Bradbury, and yes, she does have his permission to come in. Cliff’s voice is bored when he informs him that he’s sending Charlie up. 

Dean is still pacing when Charlie does her customary ‘shave and a haircut, two-bits’ knock. He lets her in, standing aside as she brushes right past him. “In a hurry?” he asks, a little sourly, as he closes the door. 

“Kind of,” Charlie says. He’s not the only one who can’t stay still: she keeps shifting from foot to foot and picking at the throw tossed over the back of the couch. 

“Is everything okay? You’re twitchier than usual.” 

Charlie looks at him. With effort, she stills her hands. “Remember when you asked me to see if I could find out something about Shapeshifter? Well, I found out some stuff.” 

“What kind of stuff?” 

Charlie’s face spasms strangely; almost like she’s smiling and trying to hide it. It only lasts for a second, but it’s enough to send a tiny chill down Dean’s spine. “Well, I know why she’s going after Cas. And I think I know what she’s going to hit next.” 

“That’s great, Charlie. Why don’t I wake up Cas, so he can--” 

“You don’t have to,” Charlie interrupts. “I’m okay waiting.” 

The small curl of  _ wrong  _ strengthens in Dean’s stomach. He’s not sure what’s happening here, but he knows that something’s not right. 

“Yeah, but I know Cas would want to hear this. I’m just going to get him--” 

Dean doesn’t see it, but somehow Charlie crosses the room in the blink of an eye. Her fingers wrap around Dean’s wrist with a strength Dean knows Charlie doesn’t possess. She looks at him, and her eyes are flat and empty. 

The fear isn’t a trickle, it’s a cascade, and Dean knows one thing for sure. “You’re not Charlie.” 

Charlie’s face splits into an unfamiliar, maniacal grin. Dean didn’t know her face could look so inhuman. “Aw, and I was going to see how long it was going to take you to figure it out. I don’t care what they say about you, Dean. You’re more than just a pretty face.” 

“You’re not going to get to Cas. You’ll have to go through me first.” It’s a stupid thing to say, especially when not-Charlie is squeezing his wrist so tightly that the small bones are creaking. If she wants to get to Cas, then there’s not a damn thing that Dean can do to stop her, but he’ll die trying. 

Charlie snickers. Dean has just a moment to worry, and then he’s tossed across the room with a simple flick of her wrist. He slides across the floor to hit the wall in a bone-jarring thump that knocks the air out of him. 

_ Please wake up,  _ Dean thinks, as he’s lying on the floor gasping for breath.  _ Cas, wake up.  _

But there’s no sound from Castiel’s room. Dean opens his mouth to scream--Cas might be a solid sleeper, but even he can’t sleep through that--but then Charlie is in his face. She grips his jaw, turning his head from side to side as she examines him. “If you scream, then I’ll just skip to the finale where I rip out Castiel’s organs and use them to decorate your apartment.” 

Dean’s jaw snaps shut almost embarrassingly quickly. To save face, he glares at the thing wearing the face of his best friend. “Why bother? It’s not like you’re going to take us to Disneyland if I go along with you.” 

Charlie pretends to consider. “Well, yeah, tourist traps are definitely right out. But I don’t want to kill Castiel. At least not yet. I’m going to give him the chance to see who he really is, just before I take  _ everything  _ from him. And you… You’re going to help me.” 

Dean opens his mouth to shout, but Charlie gets there before he has the chance. A fist slams into the side of his head, and everything goes dark. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

Castiel is drifting. Half-formed thoughts chase themselves through his dreams. He catches a glimpse of Dean’s green eyes, and then the white flash of Shapeshifter’s teeth. He remembers the bright flash of pain, and even in his dreams, he whimpers. He needs to wake up. He needs… 

“Dean,” he mumbles, pressing his face into the pillow. He tries to run, but his legs are stone. His arms are an anvil, too heavy to lift. He can’t protect Dean, he can’t save him--

“Dean!” 

Castiel’s eyes fly open, even as he bolts upright. His fingers are clawing in the blankets, ripping them away from his chest. A clammy sweat beads across his forehead and the back of his neck, and Castiel shudders. 

He’s still trembling from his dream when his phone rings. Sam’s name flashes across the screen, and it’s long years of friendship rather than any desire to talk to Sam that causes Castiel to answer the phone. 

Sam doesn’t wait for him to speak. The second the line picks up, he asks, “Where’s Dean?” 

“Sam,” Castiel croaks, then stops. “What? What do you mean, where’s Dean?” 

Cold fingers wrap around his heart, and Castiel denies them. Dean is fine. He came here to protect Dean, so he’s fine. Dean is his most important thing, and he promised to keep him safe. 

“His receptionist called me after he missed his first two appointments of the morning. She’s been trying to call him and she can’t get in touch with him. He didn’t pick up when I called either.” 

The cold fingers squeeze even tighter. Dean would never leave his kids without an explanation, and he would  _ never  _ ignore a call from Sam. 

“So I figured,” Sam continues, his voice tight, “that maybe as his roommate, you might have some insight as to where he is.” 

“I don’t…” Castiel fumbles as he tries to get out of bed. His feet are tangled in the sheet, and his limbs are as ungainly as a newborn foal. “He was here last night. He promised…” 

Somehow, Castiel makes it out of his room and into the living room. He can already tell from the tomb-like stillness that he’s the only person in the apartment, but he searches just in case. Dean’s room is a museum. His bed is still made from the previous day, and his jacket is hanging up on the back of the door. When Castiel checks the kitchen, he finds Dean’s lunch still in the fridge, untouched. Worst of all, the keys to the Impala, along with his panic button, are resting in the bowl beside the door. 

Nothing short of a broken leg or two feet of snow would stop Dean from taking the Impala. Wherever he is, he didn’t take the Impala, which means that he didn’t go anywhere of his own free will. 

His dream. Shapeshifter’s smile, splitting the world and slicing directly at his chest.  _ I’m going to go after everything you hold dear.  _

Castiel promised that he would keep Dean safe. 

Terror and guilt claw at his throat until Castiel is drowning in them. Shapeshifter promised, and he was arrogant enough to believe that he could stop them. Now, he’s alone in his apartment, and Dean is nowhere to be found, and it’s  _ his fault.  _

Castiel forces the words out, even though his throat is closing in panic. 

“Sam, something’s wrong.” 

\---

By the time Sam gets to the apartment, Castiel’s managed to shower and dress. He tried to eat, but the merest taste of food was enough to make him nauseated. He spends the time waiting for Sam by pacing through the apartment, trying to find any hint as to Dean’s whereabouts. 

When Sam arrives, he has Eileen in tow. Both of them look grim, and Sam’s eyes flash with anger when he sees Castiel. Before Eileen can stop him, he’s storming forward. Castiel doesn’t raise a hand to defend himself, even when Sam’s hand presses on his collarbone. He allows himself to be propelled backward into the wall. His skull hits the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, but the pain only registers as a dull ache. 

“Sam!” Eileen tugs at Sam’s arm, but he ignores her. 

“Where the fuck were you?” This is the angriest that Castiel has ever seen Sam. “Dean’s in  _ trouble,  _ and where the  _ fuck _ were you?” He brandishes his phone like a weapon, and Castiel flinches when he sees a picture of himself on the screen. It’s from last night at the club. His wings rise from his shoulders. Even though the picture is blurry, Castiel can see the drunken confusion on his face. “Is that what you were doing last night while my brother was  _ taken?”  _

With that last outburst, all of the anger leaves Sam. He slumps, and his hand falls away from Castiel’s chest. When he speaks again, his voice is small and defeated. “He trusted you. He trusted that you were going to keep him safe.” 

Sam’s resignation hurts worse than any anger. Against it, Castiel is powerless. A yawning chasm opens in his chest. It’s full of his shame, and his fear, and his guilt, and before he can stop it, a harsh sob bursts out of his chest. 

“I thought he would be safe,” he says, desperate to have Sam believe him. “I thought…” 

Sam’s jaw tightens. “It doesn’t matter what you thought. What happened?” 

It’s not anywhere close to forgiveness, and Castiel accepts the blow. It’s likely that Sam will never forgive him, even if they do get Dean back. It’s likely that Dean will never forgive him. 

And Castiel can accept those losses, as long as Dean lives. 

He tells Sam and Eileen the story. He starts with his first meeting with Shapeshifter, and he leaves nothing out. They hear everything, even the unflattering parts. Eileen’s face is a blank mystery, but Sam doesn’t try to hide his disdain. The only time his expression changes to something like pity or understanding is when Castiel describes his realization: Dean is the most important thing and he must be protected. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Castiel finishes. “I went to sleep last night and Dean was here. When I woke up this morning, he was gone, and I don’t know what happened.” 

Eileen points out the obvious when she says, "Obviously, he didn't go anywhere major, otherwise he wouldn't have left the Impala keys. Did you find his phone?” 

Castiel blinks. In his spiral of self-recrimination, he didn’t even notice that Dean’s phone was missing. “Maybe he went out for a walk and forgot it?” 

Even to his ears, the words sound weak. Sam is unimpressed. Eileen looks like she wants to say something caustic, but her kindness is holding her back. Castiel clenches his fists so tightly that his knuckles creak with the strain. 

He needs Dean to have gone on a walk. If Dean’s just gone for a walk, then he’ll be back. If Dean’s gone for a walk, then it’s not Castiel’s fault that he’s not here. 

“It’s Shapeshifter.” The words tumble out of Castiel’s mouth before he can stop them. Somewhere, Balthazar is having a stroke because he’s divulging classified information, but none of that matters anymore. Dean is  _ missing _ and it’s his fault. 

“Shapeshifter…” Eileen’s hands work furiously as she starts signing to Sam. Castiel tries to follow, but his ASL isn’t nearly competent enough to keep up with the rapid-fire movements. 

“What would Shapeshifter want with Dean? Bank robbery to kidnapping? And not just a kidnapping, but kidnapping a Super’s family? That’s a pretty high profile crime.” 

“They told me,” Castiel says miserably, staring at his knuckles. “They  _ told  _ me what they were going to do, and I still couldn’t… Why didn’t Dean use his panic button? Why didn’t he  _ fight?  _ Didn’t he know…” 

_ Didn’t he know I would protect him,  _ is on the tip of Castiel’s tongue, but he swallows the words. Perhaps Dean didn’t know. 

When he finally dares to look up at Sam and Eileen, the same, terrible compassion is in both of their expressions. Castiel blinks, sure that he’s missed something, but when neither of them says anything, his curiosity dims into bleak resignation. 

Eileen clears her throat. “Sam, can you call any of your contacts in the police force? What about you? Can you call Balthazar?” 

Though Castiel doubts that Balthazar will be remotely helpful, it’s not as though he has anyone else to call for help. He’s just about to call when his phone buzzes in his hand. Curious, he looks down at the screen. 

_ Dean.  _

“It’s Dean,” he tells Sam, through a series of stuttered exhalations. “Dean’s calling.” 

“Cas, we don’t know--” 

Castiel ignores Sam’s warning and answers. “Dean?” he asks, heart pounding. “Dean, where are you?” 

There’s a terrible, awful silence, and then a laugh. Castiel’s heart freezes in his chest. It’s not Dean’s voice on the other end of the line. 

It’s Charlie’s. 

“Seraph,” Shapeshifter croons. In their hands, Charlie’s normally cheerful voice is twisted into something monstrous. “Didn’t I warn you that I would take everything dear to you?” 

“You  _ give him back,”  _ Castiel snarls. 

Shapeshifter laughs again, clicking their tongue against their teeth in reprimand. “Do you really think that’s the tone you should take with me? When I have little Dean right here?” 

“How do we know?” Sam interrupts. When Castiel shoots him a wide-eyed look of apprehension, he holds up a cautionary finger. “How do we even know that you have Dean?” 

“Oh, you must be the brother.” Charlie’s voice is disappointed. “God, you’re a drag.” 

Castiel’s screen goes dark. He bites back his cry of dismay when a fuzzy picture smears into view. 

“Dean,” he whispers. He feels as though his chest is tearing in half. 

Dean, his beautiful Dean, is tied to a chair in the middle of a filthy looking warehouse. He’s conscious, but a thin cut splits his forehead. Enough time has passed that the wound is no longer bleeding, but Castiel’s stomach twists to see the trails of crimson cutting across Dean’s fair skin. Despite his wound, Dean’s eyes are bright. They glitter hatred at Shapeshifter, who’s in Charlie’s form. If there wasn’t a gag in his mouth, then Castiel’s sure that Dean would be spitting every curse he’s ever learned at them. A rush of emotion sweeps through Castiel, so fierce that it almost takes his breath away. 

If  _ (when  _ Castiel corrects himself harshly) he gets Dean back, consequences be damned. He’s going to tell Dean how he feels and then beg for forgiveness. 

“So you can see, Dean’s with me and in one piece. But if you drag your feet, that’s not going to be the case.” Charlie’s face creeps back into frame. Her normally kind eyes dance with malice, and Castiel has one more sin to lay at Shapeshifter’s feet: he’s going to have a hard time looking at Charlie, who’s been his friend for years, and not feel a shiver of revulsion. 

“What do you want?” Castiel asks, even though he already knows. 

Charlie’s lips pull back from her teeth to bare a serrated grin. “I told you. I want  _ everything.”  _ There’s a small beat, and then she says, “But I’ll start with you.” 

Next to Castiel, Sam stiffens. Castiel wonders why he’s surprised. From the beginning, Shifter has been focused on him. Somehow, Castiel always knew that it was coming to this. 

“Where?” he asks. The question draws a quick intake of breath from Sam, and a short laugh from Shapeshifter. Eileen looks between him and Sam: somewhere in the midst of the confusion, they stopped translating. Sam quickly rectifies that, and then Castiel has two pairs of furious eyes fixed on him. 

“I’ll send you coordinates in an hour. After I send you the coordinates, you’ve got fifteen minutes to get there. Otherwise, I’m going to start chopping off mementos, and I think I’ll start with the dangly bits.” 

“If you touch him--” Castiel begins, heated, but Shapeshifter cuts him off with an obvious yawn. 

“You’ll never let me go, force me to spend the rest of my days in a high security prison, blah blah, blah. Spare me your indignation,  _ Castiel.  _ Fifteen minutes from the time you get the coordinates. You come alone, otherwise, little Dean is going to be the one to suffer the consequences… You know the drill. God, I sound like a bad movie.” Charlie laughs, and then sends a broad wink at the camera. “See you soon.” 

The call cuts out, and Castiel stares at his screen for thirty seconds. His thoughts batter the fragile confines of his skull. 

Eileen is the first to break the silence. “You can’t go alone.” She says this as an incontrovertible fact. 

“I have to,” Castiel says. “Shapeshifter’s too good; they’ll know if I try to trick them.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Sam says. He holds up his phone. “I have a couple of contacts in the police precincts, and they got me a copy of the crime reports. There’s not a lot of sophistication in these crimes. Shapeshifter never bothered to hide from the security cameras, disguise their voice, or even avoid marked bills.” 

“Well, what’s the point of all those things?” Castiel is frustrated. Sam is  _ brilliant;  _ why can he not see the obvious? “Why would you bother to hide from security cameras or disguise your voice when you can change your appearance at will? Why bother demanding unmarked bills when the money isn’t important?” 

“If the money isn’t important, then why bother taking it at all?” 

“To get attention.” Castiel pauses. “To get  _ my  _ attention.” His fingernails dig into his palms as he clenches his fists. “From the beginning, they’ve been focused on me. Taking Dean is just a way to guarantee my attention.” 

“Cas.” The gravity in Sam’s voice catches Castiel’s attention, and he looks up to Sam’s troubled expression. “You know this is a trap, right?” 

“Of course it’s a trap. But I don’t see why that should matter.” 

Sam and Eileen share a look that seems significant, but it’s not until Eileen slaps the back of his head and says, “You idiot, we care about you too,” that Castiel understands the root of their concern. 

“You know that, right, Cas?” Something dark passes over Sam’s face when Castiel doesn’t answer him. “Cas, I’m pissed as hell with you, but you’re like my brother too. I don’t want to lose you.” 

A sticky lump rises in Castiel’s throat. Absurdly, tears prickle behind his eyes. It’s stupid. He doesn't have time for this. He needs to be working out a way to save Dean, he needs to be preparing for his fight, he needs…

Eileen’s arms wrap around his shoulders just before Sam Winchester slams into him like a brick wall, and Castiel lets himself crumble. His fear for Dean, his guilt and shame, his regret at not being there for Dean like he should have the past two years… Everything builds up in him like a pressure cooker, and then it’s released in an explosive sob. Sam’s arms tighten around him, and Castiel allows himself the comfort of a friendly embrace for just a second before he pulls away. 

“All right.” Sam’s eyes are suspiciously bright, but Castiel recognizes his stubborn expression. “How can we help?”

  
  


***~*~*~*~*~***


	9. Chapter 9

***~*~*~*~*~***

  
  


Dean has a headache, a crick in his lower back, and one hell of a bad attitude. 

Shapeshifter is still wearing Charlie’s face, which feels one the last, great insult on a day piled high with insults. He’s terrified, for both himself and Cas (he’s not stupid; he’s seen the headlines and the pictures, and he knows that Shapeshifter isn’t squeamish about leaving a trail of bodies behind them), but he’s also  _ pissed.  _ Dean Winchester is not a damsel in distress. Dean Winchester is a manly man, who’s going to kick some ass and do so  _ manfully.  _

At the very least, Shapeshifter’s left the gag out of his mouth. 

“Cas is gonna kick your ass,” Dean says. He addresses the room at large; Shapeshifter has moved out of his range of sight. 

_ “Castiel  _ couldn’t beat me the first time he faced me, and he was prepared for me. What makes you think this time is going to be any different?” Charlie’s face is suddenly shoved directly into Dean’s, so closely that he can feel her breath on his skin. “Especially now that he has his precious Dean to worry about. Face it, pretty boy: with you around, who needs an Achilles’ heel?” 

Nausea churns in Dean’s stomach. Nothing that Shifter’s said is false. He remembers Cas the first time he faced Shifter: he was so hurt that his healing powers weren’t working and he passed out right in front of Dean. And that was when Cas was running on all cylinders. If the Cas Dean saw last night is anything to judge by, then he’s definitely going to have some problems. 

“Then he’s definitely not going to be stupid enough to walk into your trap,” Dean says, with more bravado than he feels. 

Shapeshifter doesn’t even bother to twist Charlie’s face into a gloat. “Castiel Novak’s been stupid about you from Day One.” 

Something besides fear and anger stirs in Dean’s stomach. He clings to this new emotion and only realizes after that its name is  _ suspicion.  _

“Why do you have it out for Cas so bad anyway?” he asks. “I mean, he’s annoying sure, but I don’t think that he’s done anything worthy of murder.” 

Shapeshifter’s eyebrow creeps up their forehead. “You’ve watched too many movies. You want me to spill my plan and my secrets?” 

Dean says nothing because, yeah, that’s kind of what he was hoping. There’s a tense moment of silence where Shifter looks like they’re sizing him up, and then they laugh. “Sure, why not? It’s not like you’re going to live long enough to tell anyone.” 

Dean’s heart beats quicker as Shapeshifter stands in front of him. There’s the gut-punch  _ wrong  _ twist of seeing Charlie’s form exuding such malice, but it doesn’t stay for long. 

A small frown of concentration furrows Charlie’s forehead, but it quickly smooths out. Charlie’s skin  _ bubbles,  _ and the disturbance shifts along her cheeks and down her arms. Charlie’s hair shrinks back into her skull before sprouting again, this time golden blonde instead of vibrant red. Bones crunch and shift as her shoulders become slighter. She actually  _ shrinks,  _ her spine folding in on itself as she drops two inches. 

The entire thing is sickening, and Dean’s gorge rises as he watches an entire person’s body twist before his eyes. It feels like it lasts hours, but the entire change takes less than a minute to complete. 

When Shapeshifter finishes, Dean blinks in surprise. It’s been years, but he would recognize the person standing in front of him anywhere. 

“You’re fucking kidding me.  _ April?”  _

April Kelly smirks at him. She looks different than she did in college: definitely older, and there are a series of pale scars along her arms and neck that weren’t present in undergrad, but Dean can still recognize the girl who tried to argue with him in Philosophy class. 

“This is some kind of joke. There’s no way…” Dean shakes his head. “You’re in  _ prison,”  _ he finally comes up with. “You tried to kill Cas!” 

“I think you’ll find that prison is no longer what it used to be,” April says. “Or rather, the people running the prisons are no longer who they used to be.” 

Dean’s mind is reeling. It’s too much information shoved at him in the span of thirty seconds. He thinks he can be forgiven for looking at April and saying, “Huh?” 

April rolls her eyes in an overly dramatic gesture that  _ had  _ to have hurt in some capacity. “Thank god you’re pretty,” she mutters, before slinging herself down to rest in his lap. Dean recoils from her, but it’s not as though he can retreat. Tied to the chair, he’s forced to sit there while she taps at the center of his forehead. 

“I know it’s not your strong suit, but think for a second, Winchester. Thirty years ago, through a combination of genetics and environmental factors, Supers start cropping up. These are random freak occurrences. No way to predict them, no way to know who’s going to show up with enough power to bench press a city bus. Government sees that, government gets twitchy.

“If only there was a way to predict who would have Super powers. Or better yet, if only there was a way to cultivate those powers so that they would go into only those individuals who were  _ deserving  _ of them. Put another way, people who didn’t mind having their strings yanked around by the men in black.” 

Dean has a sinking suspicion that he knows where this story is going. 

April continues. “So, you need to control who gets powers, which means you need to experiment. Can’t experiment on citizens: they have rights. They go to the papers, make a big fuss, and before you know it, your project’s dead in the water. So, who do you turn to, when you need human subjects for your science project, preferably ones who don’t complain?” 

Cold realization sinks like a stone in Dean’s stomach. “They used the prisoners,” he whispers. “You were the subjects.” 

A cold, brittle smile spreads over April’s face. “Some people lived. Some people died. And some people came out with Super powers.” 

“That can’t have been a good idea,” Dean says. “Giving a bunch of criminals powers? Sounds like you’ve got the perfect recipe for an uprising.” 

He doesn’t want to believe April, but he can’t shake the sound of truth ringing through her every word. All he can do is grasp at straws and try to poke holes in her story wherever he can find them.

“There were a few flaws in the plans. A lot of dead bodies once they figured out what worked. Like you said, can’t have a bunch of criminals wandering around with Super capabilities.” 

“Then why are you here?” 

April lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Some people managed to slip through the cracks. It’s easy to sneak out when you can just be a guard.” 

Not for the first time that day, Dean thinks that he might be sick. “So the government is trying to manufacture their own Supers. They need a ready stock of human guinea pigs, so they use prisoners. There’s a ready supply, and it’s not like they can complain. The prisoners that manage to survive the trials and develop Super capabilities are killed, except for you, who managed to slip through the cracks.” 

“Look at that,” April croons. Her fingernails stroke over the soft skin at the back of his neck, and Dean shivers with revulsion. “Looks like you can use your brain.” 

“None of this explains Cas. What the hell do you want with him?” 

April blinks at him. “Okay, it looks like my celebration was a little premature. All of the pieces laid out in front of you, and you still can’t see the pattern.” She leans close to Dean, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her breasts press into his chest, while her warm breath tickles his ear. “I  _ made  _ Castiel.” 

It takes Dean a few seconds to realize what she means. When it hits him, he bucks as much as his bonds will let him. It’s not enough to free himself, but April does scamper off his lap. Her pretty face is twisted in anger, but that’s fine, because Dean feels like he could strangle the world. 

“You  _ bitch,”  _ he snarls. He pulls at the ropes around his wrists so hard he feels his skin spilt. Blood runs down his palms and fingers in a hot trickle. “You fucking bitch. It was  _ you. You  _ gave him his powers.” 

It wasn’t a quirk of genetics. Dean was right all along. Castiel was destined for a kinder life, a softer life. He wasn’t supposed to be a Super. He was always supposed to be just Cas. Sweet, fierce, lovable, compassionate. He was never supposed to face the horrors of the world. 

April changed that. With one movement, she sent Castiel’s life, and Dean’s by proxy, spinning out of control. 

“I created him,” April corrects. Now that he’s looking for it, Dean can spy the glittering light of madness in her eyes. “Castiel was  _ nothing  _ until I made him a Super. I made him  _ worthy.”  _

“See, that’s why Cas broke up with you,” Dean pants. It’s stupid to taunt someone who could snap his neck easy as breathing, but he doesn’t care. He feels vicious. He wants to sink his teeth into something and rip it apart. “It’s not because you’re fucking insane. It’s because you never  _ understood  _ him.” 

He waits until April’s eyes rest on him, before he spits out, “Cas was  _ always  _ special.” 

Though he’s expecting some kind of retaliation, the backhand catches him off-guard. The force of the blow is enough to knock him over, and Dean cries out in pain as his shoulder is wrenched painfully as his chair clatters to the ground. His teeth have split the inside of his cheeks; he spits and tastes blood. Still, he looks defiantly up at April. 

“Cas is going to come here, and he’s going to kick your skanky ass up and down this warehouse.” 

April is in a fury. She stomps over to where he’s lying prone and defenseless on the ground and wraps her fingers around his throat. When she squeezes, Dean coughs. Black spots dance around the edges of his vision as he wheezes desperately for air, but it’s not until he’s seconds away from passing out that she relents. April drops him as though he’s an unpleasant thing she picked up at the side of the road, and then she walks away. Dean’s left gasping and coughing on the ground, trying to drag air into his lungs through his battered throat. 

Dean keeps his eyes on April, even though her back is to him. She walks over to a small table set up at the edges of the room. A box is on the table. Almost reverently, she opens up the box. 

Light bursts from the box, and Dean squints to try and protect his eyes. When April turns around, she holds a short, silver sword in her hand. Though she holds it with ease, Dean’s mind has trouble comprehending it. It’s like seeing starlight in solid form, something that shouldn’t exist made tangible. His eyes want to slide away from it instead of beholding it. 

“Little something I picked up from  _ my  _ creators,” April tells him. “These were crafted with Super DNA in mind. It corrupts the double helix, ripping it apart strand by strand. A slow death, maybe, but a thorough one.” She taps the blade against her palm. Each impact feels like a blow straight to Dean’s chest. “One good hit from this, and it’s goodbye Seraph, goodbye Castiel.” 

“No.” The word falls from Dean’s lips as a whisper, and then as a torrent. “No, no, no!” He bucks against the chair until something pops in his shoulder and bright pain blazes through his arm. Dean stops fighting as tiny, hitching breaths work out through his nose. The world spins, and for a moment he’s terrified he’s going to be sick, but he fights through the pain. 

“If you put one hand on him,” Dean pants. 

April squats down next to him, laying a condescending hand on his cheek. “So fierce! Honestly, if it wasn’t so gross, it would be sort of cute. I’ve got to tell you, it was a little pathetic to watch Castiel pant after you in undergrad, especially when you were going through that phase where you were sticking your dick in anything that moved. I never could understand what he saw in  _ you.  _ I mean sure, pretty face, but what  _ else  _ is there?” April’s nails dig into his cheek before she pushes him away with a low noise of disgust. 

“Anyway, we’ll see in a few minutes whether Castiel’s managed to learn anything since college.” April traces over his cheek with the tip of her blade. The point comes to rest just underneath his eye, and Dean tries very, very hard not to move. 

“If he’s smart, then Castiel will have realized that you’re nothing but poison. There’s a whole world waiting for people like us, and all we have to do is reach out and take it. If he’s stupid…” April shrugs. “Well, I didn’t go to all this trouble to find a blade so it could sit pretty in a box.” 

The blade presses into Dean’s skin just enough to bring a single drop of blood welling to the surface. 

“Just sent the coordinates to Castiel,” April whispers. “Fifteen minutes, and we’ll see how smart Castiel’s gotten.” She starts to pull away, but then stops. “Oh. One more thing.” 

Before Dean can move, April shoves the gag back in his mouth. His protests and curses are lost in a spit-soaked piece of cloth. He’s helpless to give voice to his horror as April’s body changes once again. Her shoulders broaden, her frame elongates. Once again, her hair slips back into her skull, and this time when it reemerges, it’s short and sandy blond. 

Dean looks at Shapeshifter and screams.

  
  


-_-_-_-_-_-

  
  


Castiel lands in the middle of the warehouse. The sound of his wings echoes against the walls. Castiel doesn’t tuck them away. He lets his power flow across his skin. A light blue glow illuminates his way through the warehouse. His boots tap through small puddles in the floor, and every step is filled with new terrors. 

The voices of Sam, Eileen, Charlie, and Balthazar echo through his mind. Each of them has a part to play, but his must be done first. 

Of course, that’s going to be difficult if he can’t find anyone. 

This is a trap. Castiel knew that the second he got the call from Shapeshifter, but the empty warehouse brings the fact crashing down on his head. Chills prickle up and down his shoulders, and no matter where he goes, he feels as though he’s being watched.

“Come on,” Castiel mutters, squinting to see into the dark corners. “Stop wasting my time.” 

He should know better. Mere moments after he speaks, the soft sound of a footstep scraping across concrete reaches his ears. Castiel freezes, but he doesn’t hear it again.  He’s just about to chalk the whole thing up to an overactive imagination, but then he hears his name called in a voice that he would recognize anywhere. 

“Cas? Cas, is that you?” 

Castiel’s heart skips. “Dean?” he hisses. He hardly dares to believe, but a second later, Dean’s familiar, beloved face pokes around the corner. 

Relief floods through Castiel. It makes him light-headed and reckless. He rushes forward before he can stop himself and wraps Dean in a tight embrace. Pressed that closely to Dean, it’s impossible to miss his flinch. 

Guilt floods through Castiel, and he immediately releases Dean. “Are you hurt? Let me see.” He peers closely at Dean, inspecting him for any injuries. Broken bones are immediately ruled out; if they were present, then there’s no way Dean could be moving that smoothly. He doesn’t hold himself as though he’s been beaten, and Castiel can’t find the shadow of any bruises. Other than the thin cut on his forehead, Dean looks remarkably well for someone who has been held hostage for an indeterminate amount of time. 

“Your forehead,” Castiel murmurs. His thumb ghosts over the thin cut splitting Dean’s skin. 

“It’s nothing,” Dean answers. When Castiel touches the very edge of the cut, he doesn’t pull away. 

“We need to go,” Castiel says, yet he doesn’t leave. His wings are tucked against his back. With a single flap, they could transport him and Dean both to safety, still he remains. He can’t stop feasting his eyes on Dean’s face. After all these years, he would have thought that he would be immune to its charms and beauty, yet he finds himself entranced by the spray of freckles across Dean’s cheeks and the flutter of his eyelashes. 

There’s no blood on Dean’s face. There had been blood on his face when Shapeshifter had made the call. What happened to it? Castiel can’t see Shapeshifter taking the time to wipe Dean’s face clean, and hygiene usually takes a back seat to survival. 

“Cas, I need to tell you something.” With a surprising show of strength, Dean’s fingers close around his wrist. Even though Dean’s grip is bordering on painful, Castiel doesn’t pull away. His pulse thunders, probably so hard that Dean can feel it through the fragile armor of his skin. 

“Dean, we need to…” Castiel’s mouth is dry. “Shapeshifter could come back. We have to go…” 

“Cas, I’m in love with you,” Dean says, and Castiel’s world comes to a screeching halt. 

For a few seconds, he can’t breathe. Stars dance around the edges of his vision as the world shifts around him. It’s dizzying, unparalleled. He’s hurtling through space at a million miles an hour. 

Then he comes crashing back to earth. 

A deft twist of his wrist frees him from Dean’s grip. After that, it takes a mere thought for his wings to transport him ten feet away from Dean. The panic and exhilaration fade. All that’s left behind is cold resignation. 

“You’re not Dean.” 

Dean’s eyes go wide, and his mouth drops open in a small, hurt circle. A line knits itself between his eyebrows, and he looks at Castiel in mute appeal. Castiel remains firm.

“Dean doesn’t feel that way about me. You’re not Dean. You’re just a  _ monster  _ telling pretty lies.” 

Dean, or the monster wearing his face, holds onto the illusion for a second more before it shatters. He throws his head back, and an unearthly laugh that has no business coming out of his mouth peals through the empty warehouse. 

“Man, I knew you would figure it out eventually, but you’ve gotta admit, I had you going for a minute.” Dean looks at him, his face twisted in faux concern. “No? Aw, come on, Cas. It’s not fun if you don’t even play along.” 

“Dean,” Castiel bites out. “Is he dead?” 

He doesn’t dare let a shred of emotion bleed through his words. He won’t give Shapeshifter anything else to use against them. Still, he can’t calm the frantic fear raging in the pit of his stomach. If Dean is dead… 

No. He won’t even let himself think about it. 

Shapeshifter twists Dean’s face into thoughtful concern. “Dean? He’s alive. For now.” 

The threat is unmistakable. Castiel swallows. No doubt he’s making a mistake when he asks, “What do you want?”, but if it saves Dean’s life, then it’s worth it. 

“Something very simple,” Dean whispers. His glitter, and Castiel recognizes madness in their depths. “Join me.”

Castiel’s sure that he’s misheard, but then he looks at Dean’s face. 

He didn’t mishear. 

“You want me to join you?” Castiel enunciates every word, and then asks the most important question.  _ “Why?”  _

“You and me? Think about it, Castiel. We could take over the city. The world. You’ve got the power of the heavens at your disposal, and what do you do with it? Get high? Go to clubs? Pant after your roommate? Castiel, there’s a universe waiting for you to bring it to heel, and all you have to do is come with me.” 

Shapeshifter is doing his best to twist Dean’s voice and body into something seductive, but it’s a farce. Castiel has been seduced by Dean while he has pizza sauce smeared across his face, while he’s asleep and drooling into the couch cushions, when he had the flu and was huddled, miserable, in his bed. This creature wearing Dean’s shape could never come close to capturing the true beauty of Dean Winchester. 

“If I find that you’ve hurt one hair on Dean’s head, then i’ll rip you apart, and I won’t stop until you’re nothing but atoms spread across that universe you want to rule.” 

Silence follows his words, and then Dean shakes his head. “Oh, Cas,” he says, sounding like a disappointed headmaster. “That was the wrong fucking choice.” 

And as Castiel watches, Dean starts to change. It’s a series of grotesque shifts, as bones break and skin rips and organs rearrange. Castiel would think it impossible, but in the past two years he’s seen the impossible become true time and time again. 

And this is impossible: Dean’s tall, broad form diminishing into the form of a slight blonde woman. Castiel blinks, and she’s standing in front of him, a figure from his past that he occasionally still has nightmares about. 

“April?” he asks, before he can stop himself. He shakes his head. “No. If you’re going to show me something, show me your true face. I want to see who you really are.” 

April’s smile sits on her face like she’s wearing a set of clothes just a little too big for her. “And why couldn’t this be my true face?” 

“Because.” Castiel searches for a reason and comes up empty. “You’re… It’s impossible.” 

“Tell me, Castiel, about impossible. Is it impossible that all of a sudden you would develop powers out of nowhere? With no reason? Or is it impossible that someone could have given your genetics a little push in the right direction?” 

At first the words don’t make any sense, and then they make too much sense. They settle into his stomach with the cold, horrible weight of the truth, and try as he might, Castiel can’t fight against them. 

The blonde woman pushing past him. The quick flash of pain in his upper arm. 

“It was you,” he says slowly. “You were there that morning. You were the one…” Pain rips through his chest, and he staggers backward.  _ “You  _ did this to me!” 

“That doesn’t sound very grateful.” April frowns. “I gave you the  _ world.”  _

“You gave me horror, and blood, and death. And then you tried to take Dean.” Castiel’s wings flare wide. The power shining out of his eyes is bright enough to light up the warehouse. “My advice? Start running.” 

Now that there’s no need for stealth, Castiel moves swiftly. His wings carry him from room to room as he searches for Dean. Each arrival is a moment of terror, as he never knows what he’ll find. Dean, hurt? God forbid, Dean in some other state? 

It takes Castiel three tries before he finds Dean. When he finally catches sight of him, tied to a chair that’s fallen over and left him on the cold ground,he lands so hard that his knees buckle, but he doesn’t wait to recover. He runs towards Dean, stumbling and catching himself on the ground. Dirt grinds into his hands and under his nails, but Castiel ignores it. 

Dean’s eyes are urgent. Desperate muffled sounds come out from behind his gag that are only understandable when Castiel gently pulls it out from between his teeth. “Cas, Cas, you’ve got to go, it’s April, she’s Shapeshifter, you’ve got to go  _ now--”  _

“Not without you,” Castiel says. He lays his hand against Dean’s cheek. Despite everything, he smiles. “I’m glad you’re not dead.” 

“Yeah, me too. But Cas, you’ve got to get out of here. April’s insane, she was the one who gave you your powers, and she’s got this knife--” 

A foot scrapes against the ground. Cas’ senses, already sensitive, stretch to their furthest limit to hear better. As he’s listening, he finds the small signal device and presses the button. He doesn’t have time to check and make sure that it worked properly. Even as he listens, he hears another footfall, and then he knows: April is in the room with him. 

He turns around, making sure to keep his body between April and Dean. His eyes fall on the silver sword held in April’s right hand. “When you say knife, are you talking about that?” 

“Yeah, Cas, you’ve got to be careful. She said that blade can kill Supers.” 

Dean’s warning echoes in his ears as Castiel steps forward, though it’s possible it wasn’t necessary. His very being recoils from the blade, his instincts recognizing something dangerous. April doesn’t seem to feel the same as she twirls the blade. The faint light from the windows close to the ceiling catches the blade and throws off small flares of brightness. 

“Should’ve listened to me Cas,” April says. She sounds almost bored, but a tiny smirk dances across her face. “You should’ve listened to me in undergrad, and you should’ve listened to me just now.” 

Castiel doesn’t bother replying. His power flares over his skin, a warning and a promise, and then he’s moving. 

It’s like no fight that he’s ever been in before. He sees now that those were just warmups, practices for the real thing. April must have been holding back before because now she’s a dervish. Her blade flickers through the air like a star, and it’s all Castiel can do to avoid it, let alone land a blow. 

There’s no room for worry, however, not when Dean is still bound to the chair and vulnerable. He continues to draw attention to himself by hurling abuse and insults towards April, no matter how much Castiel wishes he would be quiet. 

His only form of relief comes when he sees Sam and Eileen sneaking into the warehouse. Summoned by the signaling device, they creep in and quickly cut Dean’s bonds. To divert attention from them, Castiel increases the fury and pace of his attacks. Let whatever happen to him; he’ll be fine. But let Dean escape. 

“It doesn’t matter if he gets away, you know,” April sneers. Her words manage to catch Castiel by surprise, and his toe catches on the warehouse floor. The misstep is small, but it’s enough to slow him down. April’s next blow connects, directly to his sternum, and the force of it sends Castiel to his back. Wheezing, he barely has a second to recover before April straddles his waist. The tip of her blade presses underneath his chin, tipping his head back. 

“One day, a hundred days, I’ll find him. If prison taught me one thing, it’s the value of patience. However long it takes me, I’ll find your boyfriend, and I’ll kill him, and I’ll make sure that he knows it was your fault this all happened.” 

“Un-fucking-likely, bitch.” 

A blur dashes across Castiel’s vision, followed shortly by the removal of weight from his stomach. With his breathing unencumbered, Castiel gasps. Even then, he’s moving. April didn’t move of her own free will, which means there’s someone else in the warehouse. Castiel has a nasty suspicion he knows who it is. 

Sure enough, he finds Dean untangling himself from April. He’s scrambling away from her, but he’s only human, and his reflexes are almost pathetically slow compared to hers. “Get away from him!” Castiel cries. 

His wings are slower than usual, his power strained from the fight with April, but they work well enough to transport him to Dean’s side. He lays a hand on Dean’s shoulder, ready to move him outside and away from April, but before he can gather his power enough to do that, a red-hot line opens down his arm. 

Castiel’s been stabbed before. He’s been shot, he’s been beaten. But none of those compare to the agony slicing down his arm. The pain sends him to his knees. Black crowds the edges of his vision, and it’s all Castiel can do to hold onto consciousness. 

“Cas, no, oh my god, come on Cas, you’ve got to get up, come on--” 

“Dean.” Castiel claws his way back from the brink. He still has a job to do. He has to protect Dean. “Dean, get out of here!” 

April’s laugh rolls over him. It settles in his chest, it works its way into his blood. He’ll never be free of it or of her, this woman who reached inside him and changed everything who he was. It’s too late to save Castiel, but maybe, just maybe, Castiel can save Dean. 

“Get out of here, Dean.” April’s voice is a cruel echo of Castiel’s plea. “No, I think stick around, Dean.” She lowers her voice like she and Castiel are sharing an intimate secret. “Who do you think I should kill first, you or him?” 

Rage boils in Castiel’s blood, and he surges forward. Too late, he realizes his mistake, but by then it’s too late for him to stop. April’s smile spreads wide across her face, a shark’s grin beckoning him forward into destruction. Her blade waits, thirsty for his blood, and there’s nothing,  _ nothing,  _ he can do. 

He didn’t add Dean into the equation. 

For the second time in as many minutes, Castiel hits the ground. The side of his head strikes the concrete, and light blazes behind his eyelids. His recovery takes only seconds, but those are seconds too long. 

His equilibrium is gone, but Castiel struggles to his feet anyway. He tries to blink the dots out of his vision. He needs to find Dean, he needs to find April, he needs… 

A wet, hacking breath rattles through the warehouse. Castiel freezes, and then slowly turns around. Each second lasts an eternity, too long, too long,  _ too long…  _

Castiel turns around to witness a nightmare. 

Dean is sprawled over the ground. At first glance, he could be mistaken for relaxing, but then the awkward angles of his limbs register. After that, the paleness of his skin. And finally, the quick (too quick) seep of blood through his fingers. Dean’s stomach is a puddle of crimson, and Castiel’s heart is in his throat. Far away, he can hear Sam screaming in anguish, all thoughts of subterfuge forgotten in the rapidly growing pool underneath Dean. 

Dean is hurt. All of this was for nothing. Castiel wrapped himself in the flag of heroism, said that he was the protector of the city, but it was really all to keep Dean Winchester safe. And now, Dean is hurt. 

Not dead, thank any deity in the sky, but  _ hurt.  _ His eyes are wide and terrified. His legs kick at the ground, heels uselessly searching for purchase against the slick, concrete floor. He gasps, and the sound is too thick, wet and strained. April’s blade has opened a hole in Dean’s belly, and that… That is something that cannot be allowed. 

Castiel storms forward. A thunderstorm sparks over his skin as his power rises in response to his fury. Never before has it actually arced away from his body, but it is now, reaching out to April to snap across her skin. Her sneering gloat disappears to be replaced with something close to fear. 

Good. She should be afraid. She should be terrified. 

Righteous wrath blazes through his skin. Castiel feels hot, like there’s a supernova burning through his blood. He blinks, and light pours through his gaze. 

“Castiel, we can talk about this. Castiel, this isn’t like you. Castiel!” 

April’s protests register as something like a gnat: annoying and inconsequential. Castiel is more than that. He is vengeance. Nothing else matters: not Sam’s shouts, not April’s pleas, not even the faint sound of helicopters and sirens in the background. All that matters is the heat and the power. 

His hand touches April’s forehead. Castiel has no conscious thought as he channels power through his body down to his hand and from there into April. There’s overwhelming heat, the sickening sound of burning flesh, a scream splitting the air, and then… 

Nothing. 

Castiel feels empty, like someone’s taken a melon corer to his center and scooped him clean. Still, he knows what he has to do. He turns to Dean, stumbling forward. His knees hit the ground with bone-jarring force, but he ignores it. All that’s important is Dean. 

Dean’s eyes are glazed over. The normally vibrant green is dull, and his already fair skin is waxy and pale. He coughs, and a mist of red sprays from his mouth. He groans, trying to curl forward in an attempt to protect himself from a wound that’s already done its damage. The situation looks hopeless, but Dean’s chest still rises and falls. There’s still time. 

“Cas,” Dean wheezes. As he speaks, a thin trickle of blood drips out the corner of his mouth. “Cas, I’m sorry--” 

“Shut up,” Castiel says thickly. He blinks to clear the tears from his vision. “Just shut up. Talking keeps you from healing.” 

Dean looks like he might argue, but then, with horrifying suddenness, his eyes shut. Castiel bites back a horrified cry. Instead, he seizes the last bit of determination he has and forces it forward. He can still save Dean. 

Castiel puts his hand directly on Dean’s wound. He ignores the hot, sticky blood which spreads between his fingers and instead concentrates on funneling his power into Dean’s body. As he pours more and more of his power into Dean, Castiel feels himself growing weak, but that’s not important. What’s important is that the flow of blood has slowed. Dean’s breathing is stronger. Color is returning to his skin. 

More. Dean needs more, and that’s what Castiel will give him. There’s nothing Castiel wouldn’t give Dean. He pours more of his power into Dean, ignoring the insistent pound of his heartbeat in his ears and the ringing in his ears. 

“Cas! Cas, you can stop! Cas, it’s too much!” 

Hands pull at his shoulders and arms, and Castiel flares his wings out in warning. How  _ dare  _ these people try to pull him away from Dean? Can’t they see that he’s still hurt? 

He’s a vessel, emptying himself out into Dean. More, more, just a little more and he can stop. His breaths are scraping out his lungs, and his head is pounding, but it’s not enough. Dean needs more. Castiel forces more of his power into Dean, ignoring the bright pain in his chest. 

“Castiel, stop! You’ve done enough, now  _ stop!”  _

Castiel forces the last bit of golden light in him into Dean. He clings to consciousness long enough to see a pink blush flood Dean’s cheeks. It’s the last thing he sees before the darkness takes him. 

  
  


**~*~*~*~*~*~***


	10. Chapter 10

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Noise. 

That’s the first thing that registers in Dean’s mind. He frowns. It’s not like Cas to leave the TV on when he goes to bed. Plus, this program isn’t what Castiel usually listens to. His tastes run more towards _Planet Earth_ documentaries, and less towards action-adventures featuring sirens, helicopters, and walkie-talkie feedback. 

Something’s not right. Those sounds are too close, and the surface underneath his back is too hard. This isn’t his bed, and this isn’t the apartment. 

Dean opens his eyes. 

His vision is blurry, but after a few blinks, it clears. Confusion chases itself around his foggy brain as the unfamiliar, industrial ceiling swims into view, and then he remembers. 

“Cas,” he chokes out. He flails, with limbs that feel like they’re over a hundred pounds. “Cas, is he--” 

“Dean, stay still!” 

Sam’s voice, tight with urgency and worry, breaks through Dean’s panic. Brought to heel by a lifetime of worrying about his younger brother, Dean obeys. It’s only after he stops struggling that he realizes why he couldn’t move. 

A wing, almost as large as he is, is stretched across him. It takes Dean an instant to recognize Cas’ wing; he’s seen it enough on the news and in the apartment. The joint rests just over his left shoulder, while the flight feathers stretch down to his knee and calf. It’s a large weight pressing him down, yet it feels almost ephemeral. There’s no tickle of feathers, like he would expect from a bird’s wing, yet the pressure and warmth is real enough. 

Dean cranes his head over to the side to see Cas, stretched out alongside him on his stomach. His head is pillowed on his arms. Even though power still shifts over his body in sluggish waves, Castiel looks asleep. Or unconscious. Or… 

No. Dean won’t even think of that. 

Instead, he focuses on the other odd thing, which is Sam’s presence. He vaguely remembers Sam and Eileen untying him from the chair, but he also remembers telling them to get out. They fought with him, but Dean was adamant: he wasn’t going to leave Cas. 

“What are you still doing here?” Dean asks. It’s a little weird, having a conversation with Sam while he’s still flat on his back with Cas’ wing overtop of him, but it’s still not the strangest thing Dean’s ever done. 

Sam’s bitchface comes out in full force as he looks down at Dean. “Trying to save your dumb ass. Don’t move. We’re still not sure…” His eyes flick down to Cas’ wing. “We’re not sure what moving either one of you will do.” 

“What’s wrong with Cas?” 

“We don’t know. Balthazar doesn’t have any answers, and none of the doctors can pinpoint what’s wrong.” 

Dean squints at his brother. “All right, what aren’t you telling me?” 

Sam looks away. His teeth worry at his lower lip, and he goes through some internal debate before he looks at Dean. “Do you remember what happened?” 

Dean thinks. There was pain, overwhelming and complete, and then… “Cas healed me,” he says slowly. He manages to work a hand down underneath Cas’ wing to touch his abdomen. The skin underneath his fingers is smooth and whole. 

“That’s not all he did.” Sam’s face twists in a small grimace. “He… Well, I guess the right word is _smited_ April, and then he went to heal you, but I don’t think he had enough power, and he passed out. He’s been unconscious for about thirty minutes now.” 

“Then why is he still…?” Dean gestures to the wing stretched over his body. 

“Our best guess is that he’s still trying to heal you, even while he’s unconscious.” 

Resolve hardens in Dean’s chest. Like hell he’s going to lay here while Cas drains himself dry just to save him. He starts squirming out from underneath Castiel’s wing, ignoring his friend’s unhappy grumbles. “Stop,” Cas moans, his wing retracting to try and hold Dean stationary. “Dean… Need to…” 

“Maybe you should just wait,” Sam suggests, but Dean ignores him. 

“Cas, come on. Up and at ‘em.” He pats Castiel’s cheek, trying to jostle him out of his stupor. “Castiel. Come on.” Inspiration strikes and he leans close to Cas’ ears. “If you don’t wake up, then I’m going to reorganize your shelves by color.” 

Castiel’s eyelashes flutter on his pale cheek, and Dean grins. “That’s it, buddy. Come on.” 

Slowly, Cas’ eyes creak open. Tension bleeds out of Dean’s shoulders as he sees the hazy blue of his irises. “Dean,” Castiel mutters, blinking slowly, then his gaze sharpens. “Dean!” 

Cas scrambles upright, narrowly avoiding hitting both Sam and Dean with his wing. “You were hurt,” he says, his hands grabbing at Dean’s shoulders before patting down his torso. “April, she…” 

“Cas, it’s fine. I’m all right.” Dean grabs Castiel’s hand and ignores the small jolt that goes through him at the contact. “You healed me. You did it.” 

While Cas doesn’t fully relax, some of the panic bleeds out of him. “You’re all right?” he asks, more for confirmation than out of any disbelief. 

Dean nods, and finally, Cas’ shoulders droop with relief. They hunch right back up again when he says, his voice stern, “But don’t think we’re not going to talk about what you did. Using your power to the point where you pass out?” 

A slap to the back of his head stops him from speaking further. Dean glares at Sam, who, jerk that he is, ignores him and focuses instead on Cas. “How are you feeling?” he asks. 

Cas’ forehead wrinkles and his head tilts as he considers Sam’s question. “I’ve been better,” he finally decides. “But I’m _fine_ ,” he continues, glaring defiantly in Dean’s direction. 

Dean mumbles, _Yeah, we’ll see about that_ , under his breath. If he hears, Castiel ignores him. 

“Balthazar is coordinating the people outside,” Sam explains. “Eileen’s with him, keeping everyone busy. If you wanted to…” He makes some motion with his hands, which Dean interprets as ‘get the hell out of Dodge’, “then now would be the time.” 

“Cas doesn’t have the juice,” Dean protests. 

A hand grips his shoulder with enough force to make his breath catch in the back of his throat. “I have enough strength left for this,” Cas tells him. Even if Dean wanted to argue, he couldn’t. He recognizes the stubborn set of Cas’ jaw. Only an idiot would fight against that. 

“Right.” A satisfied smile tugs at Sam’s mouth. “I’ll just say that I stepped out to make a call and when I came back, you were gone. Obviously, it’s not a permanent solution, but it’ll keep them busy long enough for you two to… talk.” 

Dean doesn’t quite like the little wiggle of Sam’s eyebrows, but he’s not given enough time to complain about it. Cas’ fingers dig into his shoulder, and there’s a disturbance in the air. Before he has a chance to brace himself, the world twists and shifts around him. It’s like the floor drops out from underneath him, and for a second, he’s in a wild, screaming freefall with nothing around him. Then, with bone-jarring suddenness, he’s in their living room. 

Almost immediately, Cas sags, and only Dean’s hasty actions save him from falling face-first into the floor. “Come on,” he grunts, barely biting back the worried scolding that longs to slip from his lips. “Bed.” 

Cas doesn’t fight him as Dean half-carries, half-supports him to his room. He flops back into the mattress, releasing a relieved sigh. 

This is the part where Dean should leave. He should make sure that Cas is fine and then make himself scarce. But he can’t. Cas almost _died_ today. 

“You almost died today.” Dean jerks in surprise, for a moment convinced that he said his thoughts aloud. But it appears that Castiel’s mind has just taken the same track as his. 

“Look who’s talking,” he says, a little more sharply than he means to. A quick flash of _pain_ crosses over Cas’ face, and Dean immediately feels guilty. Ignoring the part of his brain that’s currently screaming in panic, he takes Cas’ hand in his. Cas’ eyes widen, and his heart beats a wild samba in his chest, but Dean doesn’t let go. 

“Look, I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes over the knuckle at the base of Cas’ thumb. The whorls on his finger catch against the tiny scar, gotten when Cas was a child in a playground accident. “I’m sorry that I’m always yelling at you, I’m sorry that I was a dick earlier. I can’t lose you, okay? I _need_ you.” 

“And because of that, you think that it’s fine for you to throw yourself in harm’s way?” Cas twists his wrist so that he’s holding onto Dean as well. “Nothing is worth losing you, Dean. Nothing.” 

Something held captive in Dean’s chest for far too long twists and catches. He keeps his eyes on Cas’ as he slowly brings their joined knuckles to his lips. When he finally brushes a kiss over the battered and bruised skin (Cas’ healing didn’t stretch to the most superficial of injuries), Cas’ breath catches in his chest. 

“Dean,” he says, his voice strangled and tight. “Dean, what are you…” 

“Years.” Dean directs his words towards Castiel’s knuckles. If he has to face Cas, then he’ll lose every bit of his newfound courage. “I’ve spent years wanting you and years hating myself for not telling you. Seeing you with April… Knowing that both of us could have died, and you never would have known… That was the final straw.” 

Cas’ hand trembles in his. Dean swallows the terror clawing through his chest and throat and forces the last words out. So many times, he’s had the opportunity to say them, and he’s failed every single time, but now. Now he finally says what he should have said years ago. 

“I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me. I know I hurt you, I know I was an asshole, but Cas. You’re the most amazing person I know.” 

Finally, he dares to look at Cas. What Dean sees reflected in Cas’ eyes makes his breath catch. He never would have dreamed that such warmth and affection could be directed towards him, but it’s there. 

“Dean.” He’ll never understand how Cas can turn the simple sound of his name into something resembling a caress, but the syllables dance over his skin. “For years, I’ve been so terrified of telling you how I felt because I was afraid that I would lose you. But I almost lost you today, and you would have never known…” 

As they’ve been speaking, Dean and Castiel have been leaning closer towards each other. They’re like planets, revolving into each other’s spaces, until finally their foreheads are pressed together. They breathe in tandem, and Dean could swear that his heart beats to the same rhythm as Cas’. 

“Dean,” Cas whispers, just before he tilts his head. 

The first touch of their lips is electrifying, like Cas has used a jolt of his power, but he hasn’t. It’s just them, just their own, intensely human connection. Cas’ lips are chapped, and the rough patches catch against Dean’s skin until he sweeps his tongue over them to smooth them out. Cas’ mouth opens and Dean accepts the invitation. 

Cas’ hands run up Dean’s forearms, to grab at his biceps, and then his shoulders. It’s only when he’s tugging at the short strands of hair at the back of his head that Dean thinks to pull away. 

“Cas,” he pants. “Cas, are we moving too fast? What about you? Are you feeling okay?” 

Even though he was the one to stop them, Dean can’t stop himself from leaning forward. His hands run over Cas’ knees, to rest on his thighs. Small shivers race through his body, excitement and terror alike at having everything he’s wanted for years at his fingertips. 

“Dean, if you really want to stop, then I’ll respect your wishes. I don’t want to push you any further than you’re comfortable with. But if you’re conjuring up scenarios for us to stop, then please, for the love of god, don't.” 

Dean surges forward. He and Cas collide in a messy tangle of limbs, until they finally come to rest with Dean straddling Cas. His arms are wrapped around Cas’ shoulders, trying to pull him closer, while Cas’ hands span his waist, urging him forward in a subtle roll of his hips. 

“Oh, fuck, Cas,” Dean groans as Cas trails his lips down his chin to the bolt of his jaw. Small, stinging nips light his skin ablaze, and Dean’s hips jerk forward in search of more sensation. His fingers trail down Cas’ chest to scrabble at the material of his suit. 

“What the hell is this thing made out of?” he grouses. “There’s no fucking zipper?” 

Cas pulls away from him with a breathless laugh. Delight dances in his sparkling eyes, and his grin could light up the whole city. “Move,” he commands, with a little buck of his hips that does nothing to convince Dean to move. “Dean, if you want this suit off anytime today, you’re going to have to move.” 

With that as his motivation, Dean slides off of Cas’ lap, though he never takes his eyes off of him. Reaching behind himself, Cas performs a few complicated looking shuffles, and then his suit is peeling off of his shoulders, revealing miles of tanned skin. Dean bites his lower lip as his fingers play nervously with the hem of his own shirt. Faced with the sight of Cas in just his boxers, as he steps out of his suit, he doesn’t feel inspired to bare his skin. 

Thankfully, Cas steps in. Cas knows what he needs; Cas knows how to take care of him. “Let me,” he says, his voice low and comforting, as he rests his hands on Dean’s hips. Slowly, his fingers sneak underneath Dean’s shirt to touch his bare skin, even as he leans forward to kiss him, achingly tender and slow. 

Dean’s head spins. He’s not sure when his shirt comes off, or his pants. All he knows is the touch of Castiel’s lips on his and the drag of his fingertips of the ladder of his ribs. Cas only stops when he’s standing in his boxers, shivering from anticipation and cold alike. 

“Can I?” he asks, kissing underneath Dean’s ear. He strokes along the waistband of Dean’s boxers, teasing the sensitive skin. Dean’s hips jerk forward in a search for sensation, and he can feel Cas’ chuckle, warm and pleased, brushing over his skin. 

“Shit, Cas, you can do whatever you want,” Dean says, then comes to his senses when Cas starts to work his boxers down over the swell of his ass. He catches Cas’ wrist, causing him to pull back. “But you first.” 

Cas’ grin is equal parts bashful and pleased. “I can do that.” Cas hooks his thumbs underneath the band of his boxers, and, with an ease that Dean never would have expected from him, slides them down to the floor, revealing a cock that Dean can’t wait to get his mouth around. 

“Shit,” Dean breathes, reaching out to ghost his fingers over the hard, aching flesh of Cas’ dick. “Fuck, Cas…” 

Cas’ eyes flutter shut as his mouth drops open on a soft moan. He thrusts forward into Dean’s grip, seeking more friction. Dean’s so taken with how gorgeous Cas looks that he doesn’t notice Cas working his boxers down. It’s only when Cas wraps his fingers around his own, leaking cock, that he becomes aware of his own nakedness. 

“Cas,” he whines, his hips jerking forward into Cas’ grip. “Cas, come on.” 

“I’ll take care of you,” Cas promises, leaning forward and kissing him. He moves Dean backward with sure movements, until the backs of Dean’s knees hit the mattress. Laughing, Dean collapses backward. He sprawls across the bed, grinning at Cas’ heated look as his eyes rake over his body. 

Each of Dean’s nerves is screaming for contact. He props himself up on his elbows, reaching out for Cas. “Come here,” he whispers. 

Cas’ fingers interlock with his, and Dean groans in relief as their skin comes together in a heated slide. His legs rise to hook around Castiel’s waist, which brings their cocks together. Pleasure sparks along his body, and Dean groans in delight. His legs tighten around Castiel’s hips, keeping him steady as he thrusts against him. 

Cas kisses him, sloppy and wet as he grinds into Dean. Their rhythm is messy, but it’s enough. With everything that he’s wanted for years in the palm of his hand, Dean already knows that he’s not going to last long. 

His nails dig furrows in Cas’ shoulders as he holds on for dear life. Cas’ mouth presses against his before trailing over his cheek to his throat. Dean cranes his head back, allowing him more access, and he keens in delight when Cas bites a series of stinging kisses down the sensitive skin. 

“Cas,” Dean moans. He tugs Cas’ hair to bring his mouth back to his. “Fuck, I’m not gonna…” He can feel his orgasm curling deep in the pit of his belly, pressure in his balls and cock waiting to be released. 

“Me either,” Cas pants. His hips roll forward into Dean, and their cocks rub together, the way eased by sweat and precome. Cas works a hand between their bodies, wrapping his long fingers around both their cocks. Sweat drips from the tips of Cas’ hair onto Dean’s chest as he flicks his thumb over the head of Dean’s cock. “Come for me, Dean.” 

The words reach down deep inside of Dean, sparking a chain reaction. His back arches as he comes over Cas’ hand and his stomach in messy ropes. Even after he comes, Cas continues working them over. His hand squeezes, and Dean whines in overstimulated bliss. His fingers twist in Cas’ hair as he brings his head down to his. He kisses Cas and tastes his moans as he thrusts sloppily into his own hand. He can taste Cas’ small sigh when he comes, and he kisses him through the aftershocks. 

Afterward, he and Cas lay together, their pinkies linked together. Their chests rise and fall as they catch their breath. For his part, Dean can’t stop looking at Cas: his dark eyelashes against his flushed cheek, the small mole next to his right nipple, the curl of his hair just above his ear. He’s a marvel, every bit of him: not because of his powers but because he’s so blessedly human. 

“I love you,” Cas says, picking up Dean’s hand and examining it. He runs his fingers over Dean’s knuckles and nails before sliding his eyes over to look at Dean. “In case you were wondering.” 

Dean twists his wrist so that his fingers interlock with Castiel’s. “That’s good to hear,” he says, bringing their knuckles to his lips. He can feel Cas’ brief thrill of tension by how his fingers tighten around the back of his hand, and Dean hides a smile against their skin. 

“It would have been really embarrassing if I was the only one who felt that way,” he continues. 

Cas’ laugh feels like a dose of sunshine, distilled into its purest form, and dumped over him. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

Waiting in someone’s darkened living room for them to come home might be a cliche move, but Castiel always maintains that cliches are underrated. If they didn’t work, then they wouldn’t have become cliches. 

His pondering is brought short, when he hears the soft sounds of a door opening. Keys rattle as they’re placed on the table beside the door, accompanied by a soft sigh. Relief? Fatigue? Castiel doesn’t get a chance to decide, as the next sound his ears pick up is the quick flick of the light switch next to the door. The sound is repeated, yet still the light doesn’t come on. 

“Oh, what the hell…” Footsteps echo from the doorway to the living room, and Castiel moves. He reaches out to flick on the lamp next to his chair. The sudden blaze of light makes Balthazar wince. He takes a step back, one hand flying up to protect his eyes from the sudden influx of light. 

To his credit, Balthazar recovers quickly. He drops his hand and glares at Castiel. “Leaning into the melodrama a little hard, aren’t we, _Cassie_?” He puts extra inflection on the nickname, knowing how much Castiel loathes it. 

“Had to make sure I was going to get your attention,” Castiel answers smoothly, not rising to the taunt. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and indicates the chair opposite him with a short nod. Balthazar sits, though not without raising a sardonic brow, no doubt at being invited to sit on his own furniture. 

After he sits, there’s a tense moment. Castiel hasn’t seen Balthazar in weeks, not since he was staying in this very apartment, and he hasn’t spoken to him since the warehouse. Sam kept him informed of what Balthazar did: took April’s body from the warehouse, smoothed over matters with law enforcement, and put the Shapeshifter case firmly underneath government control. His actions have made Castiel’s life minimally easier in the past weeks, but there’s little forgiveness in Castiel’s heart. He can’t erase what Balthazar was trying to turn him into or the road of hedonism Balthazar was happy to lead him on. 

(Sometimes Castiel wakes from a deep sleep with his heart racing and his veins screaming for some kind of chemical relief, and it takes Dean’s soft touches and gentle kisses to bring him back down to the earth. He can’t forgive Balthazar for making that his reality, or for forcing Dean to deal with the aftermath.)

Balthazar finally breaks the tension. “Since you went into all the trouble to break into my apartment, I assume there’s something you want.” One eyebrow rises, daring Castiel to deny his claim. 

Castiel takes a deep breath. He’s talked about this decision with Dean, Sam, Eileen, and Charlie. Though the risks involved are undeniable, it’s also the only option. 

“I’m out.” 

Castiel is proud. His voice never wavers as it rings clear through the apartment. Goosebumps rise on his arms and the back of his neck, but in the dim light, there’s no way Balthazar can see them. Everything about him, from the straightness of his spine to the set of his jaw, states his resolve. 

Balthazar never bats an eye, which proves to Castiel that he must have known this was coming. He’s not stupid, far from it. When Castiel stopped returning his calls, he must have sensed this parting of the ways. Instead of arguing, Balthazar slumps back into his chair. His hand dangles over the arm, almost indolent in its supreme effort not to care. 

“You’re making a mistake,” he finally says. “Without your government contract, you’ll have no protection from law enforcement, should your methods prove… unsightly. There were already going to be consequences for what happened with Shapeshifter. If you remove yourself from government protection, then they will only multiply.” 

At the mention of April, Castiel’s stomach twists. He has nightmares about her sometimes: the scent of her burning flesh, the light pouring out of her eyes, the echo of her screams. No matter what else he does, he’s taken someone else’s life, and that’s a sin he can’t scrape off his soul. But he’s not going to absolve himself by working for the same people who made his sins necessary. 

“If it weren’t for the people you’re working for, then none of that would have been necessary. They created a monster, and that monster created me. I can’t work for them. I won’t.” 

There’s so much more that Castiel could say, but he holds his tongue. None of it would convince Balthazar, and he’s not certain that Balthazar would even care. 

“You’ll lose everything,” Balthazar warns. “Your apartment, your salary, probably even your little university job. They will persecute you in ways that you haven’t even thought of.” 

“I’m done,” Castiel says. His power ripples over his skin as he stands up. His wings stretch the length of Balthazar’s living room before they fold next to his back. “But I am keeping the suit.” 

He holds Balthazar’s eyes for a long second, waiting to see if he’ll say something else. No matter what Castiel feels for him personally, let alone the people he works for, they did manage to do some good together. While Balthazar was never a friend, Castiel still doesn’t feel comfortable thinking about him as an enemy. 

When it becomes clear that Balthazar has nothing else to say to him, Castiel’s wings unfurl. Power dances over his skin, and his wings beat at the air. Just before he disappears, he thinks he might hear a whispered, “Be careful, Cas,” but the words are lost in the beat of his wings and the roar of his power, and then it’s too late to tell for certain.

\---

Castiel lands in green. Grass in the backyard rises up over the top of his shoes, and he knows that Dean will be up early on Saturday morning to mow the lawn. Though Dean’s complaints about the numerous chores are seemingly endless, Castiel can also see through him. He knows that there’s hardly anything else Dean would rather be doing early on the weekends. 

Well. Anything that isn’t usually performed naked, that is.

There are cars already in the driveway, so Castiel knows he’s the last to arrive. Sam’s Charger is parked behind the Impala, and Charlie’s bright yellow Gremlin is at the end of the driveway. Upon seeing the cars, Castiel’s heart glows. No matter what else happens, his family is gathered here, together. 

He was foolish enough to the point where he almost lost them once. He’s not going to make the same mistakes again. 

Castiel lets himself in through the back door. He can hear the low sound of voices coming from the living room, but he wants to change out of the slightly pretentious suit before joining them. He ducks down into the hallway leading to the master bedroom. _Their_ bedroom, the room which he and Dean share. No doubt some would say that they’re moving too fast: buying a house together less than forty-eight hours after consummating their relationship, but Castiel has always sneered at societal conventions. Not to mention, as Dean so succinctly put it, he and Dean have been going through approximately seven years worth of foreplay. Sometimes, Castiel doesn’t quite agree with how Dean sees the world, but in this case, they’re both in total agreement. 

The second Castiel stepped foot in the house which Dean picked out, he knew it was perfect. For them, for the life they were trying to build. He signed the papers with Dean that afternoon and has never looked back. 

Once he’s changed into jeans and a sweater, Castiel makes his way to join the rest of his family. Dean smiles to see him, and it feels as natural as breathing to walk to his side. Dean’s arm slides around his waist, pulling him closer, and something in Castiel’s chest relaxes at the contact. 

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Dean says. His thumb sneaks under the hem of Castiel’s sweater to brush against his skin. Castiel sighs in muted relief. After the tension of the previous encounter, Dean’s presence is a relaxing boon. 

Everyone else murmurs their greetings, except for Sam, who looks at him evenly. “Is it done?” His question immediately plunges the room into a serious mood. Castiel nods, and Sam’s expression softens. “How did he take it?” 

“About as well as I expected. He didn’t throw anything at me, but there were a few threats made. I’m willing to suspect that things might get more difficult as the weeks progress.” Castiel offers a wobbly smile to Sam. “I fear that your position might be the most in jeopardy. Dean’s practice and my job are fairly safe, but with you working for the District Attorney’s office…” 

Sam lifts a shoulder in a weak shrug. “I’ve built up some goodwill over the years. My job record should be enough to shield me from the worst of it.” 

Sam’s expression says that he’s not going to hear any arguments. Castiel swallows his protests, though fear and anxiety sit and churn in the pit of his stomach. He still hasn’t forgotten the rage on Sam’s face when he heard that Dean was missing. Because of that, there’s a wedge that’s been shoved between him and Sam, one that Castiel isn’t sure he can ever fix. He hopes one day that he can look at Sam without remembering his betrayed look, but he’s not sure. 

The tension from the moment passes as Charlie sucks on the straw of her soft drink. A loud, slurping noise fills the room and all eyes turn to her. “Sorry, was that supposed to be a serious moment?” The straw is clenched between her teeth and she grins around it. Despite everything, Castiel grins back. “Anyway, let me tell you what I’ve found.” She glances around the living room. “What kind of lair is this? You don’t even have a place for me to do a Powerpoint presentation?” 

“Just pretend like you can,” Dean says, a touch of impatience coloring his voice. 

Charlie rolls her eyes, but continues. “First thing I did was to look up all of April’s associates. Anyone who might have helped her or given her money. I found a few people by going through her bank records. They’ll be getting a visit from the authorities for some very suspicious tax returns as well as some questionable internet searches.” 

“Taxes?” Dean stops to ask. “You’re going to Al Capone these guys?” 

“That’s the only way you can get these people,” Eileen interrupts before Charlie has a chance to answer. “They cover up their tracks too well to be arrested for any of their actual crimes, so you find them in taxes.” 

“Exactly,” Charlie says triumphantly, pointing at Eileen. “A little less ridicule for the white-collar crimes division and a little more appreciation for my awesomeness. Besides, that was the easy part. The hard part is tracking down anyone else who might have been subjected to the same experiments as April. For pretty obvious reasons, they’re keeping those records hush-hush, and their guys are almost as good as me.” 

“There’s nothing?” Castiel doesn’t mean to sound quite so despairing or critical, but he was hoping for more. 

“Relax. I said _almost_ as good. I’ll find something; it’s just taking me some time. The question is, once I find their records, what do you want to do?” 

“I don’t know,” Castiel says. “I suppose… I’d like to talk to them?” 

Sam’s eyebrows tick up. “You sure that’s wise? I’m not saying that these people deserved what they got, but they were in prison for a reason. You sure that meeting up with a bunch of former criminals who now have superpowers is the best course of action?” 

Dean’s fingers press into his skin. If he were a normal human, they would leave bruises in their wake. When he speaks, his voice is tight. “No one deserves that shit, Sammy. Maybe they did some bad shit before, but using people as your guinea pigs? We’re not saying that we invite them over for a sleepover, but it can’t hurt anything to set up a meeting. If they turn out to not be friendly, then Cas will take care of it. But for all we know, they’re scared and alone.” 

Dean cuts himself off. He stares fixedly down at the ground, and a flush creeps up the back of his neck. Castiel strokes over the sensitive skin, and slowly, the tension bleeds from Dean’s shoulders. 

“I just want you to be careful,” Sam says, in an apologetic, non-apology. “Came really close to losing you once, and I don’t want to go through that again. For _either_ of you,” he says, his eyes resting on Castiel. 

A little bit of the wedge between them melts away, as easily as though it had never existed. 

“Sam and I will keep our ears to the ground and lean on our police contacts. If there’s news of a new Super out there, we’ll find it. You just stay careful. Balthazar warned you that the government wasn’t going to be happy with you, and you know they hold a grudge.” Eileen’s eyes are dark and intense as she looks at both of them. Though the obstacles facing them are enormous, Castiel firmly believes that she could defeat them all, looking like that. 

“And I’m hunting them down through the web. If there’s something to find, you know I’ll find it.” With another slurping sound, Charlie empties her cup. Her grin lifts some of the darkness around Castiel’s heart. 

“You know what we’re doing is dangerous.” Castiel is surrounded by incredibly smart people, so he doubts his warning is necessary, but he still feels the need to say it. He understands now, better than he did before, the risk that people take when they associate themselves with him. He loves everyone in this room, deeply and desperately. To lose any of them because they helped him would be intolerable. 

Dean is the first to speak. His words are Dean’s typical form of comforting. “No shit, Sherlock, but you’re not going to be an idiot and try to go it alone. We’re here for you.” 

“Plus, who hasn’t dreamed of bringing down the government?” Charlie bares her teeth in a grin that promises to rip someone’s throat out. “Seriously, Cas, if you’re trying to talk us out of this, then you can stop right now. We love you and all, but this is also the right thing to do.” 

“Yeah. We’re not stupid. We understand the risks, but this is bigger than us. If we’re manufacturing Supers… If we’re experimenting on people who can’t give consent, then that’s _wrong_. It needs to stop, and if we’re the only people around to stop it, then well… Well, that’s just how it works.” 

Eileen’s words put a cap on the conversation. After that, what else is there to say? Charlie passes out new versions of the panic button which had been originally given to Dean. One press of the button will alert all other holders that the bearer is in trouble. As Dean’s button showed previously, it’s not a foolproof system, but it’s certainly better than nothing. It helps to assuage the anxiety sitting in Castiel’s chest. 

Their conversation moves onto other things: talk of Charlie’s LARPing group, Sam and Dean’s bickering over what constitutes a suitable salad (Castiel already knows there’s no winning that argument so he stays well out of it), and Eileen’s plans to start a weekend class tutoring volunteers in ASL. Castiel hangs at the edges of the conversation, content to observe instead of interact. Warmth floods through him as he looks at each of these vibrant, wonderful people. 

This is his family. And he’ll be damned if anything threatens them ever again. 

\---

Later that night, Castiel lays in bed staring up at the ceiling. Dean lays beside him, his hand heavy on his belly. One of Dean’s legs is hooked within his. Each point of contact grounds Castiel, but it doesn’t stop the incessant roar of his thoughts in his skull. 

“Hey,” Dean finally says, patting Castiel’s stomach to get his attention. “What’s going on? I can _hear_ you thinking.” 

Castiel sighs. For a moment, he thinks about holding onto his worries, but then he dismisses that thought. If the past weeks have taught him anything, it’s that nothing good comes from hiding important information from Dean. 

“I can’t bear the thought of anyone getting hurt on my account. Sam, Eileen, Charlie…” Castiel swallows and covers Dean’s hand with his own. “You. You’re all too important to me.” 

“Cas, I love you, but sometimes you’re pretty dumb.” Dean pushes himself up on an elbow so that he’s looking down at Castiel. “Were you not listening earlier this evening? We’re doing this to help you, sure, but it’s not like you twisted our arms. We _want_ to help. This is more than us, it’s what’s right.” 

“I want to be able to protect you,” Castiel whispers. He squeezes Dean’s hand. “I have all this power, but if I can’t keep you safe, then what’s the point?” 

“Hey, now. Get all that responsibility off your manly shoulders.” Dean kisses him to ease the sting off of his words. “We’re a team, remember? We keep each other safe.” 

Castiel has another protest to voice, but it gets lost when Dean kisses him. The world falls away until it’s just him and Dean, and as long as Castiel has Dean in his arms, he can allow himself to believe that they’re going to be all right. 

“You and me, Cas,” Dean whispers. He presses his forehead to Castiel’s. “We’re in it together.” 

He kisses Castiel again, this time with the intent to distract. Luckily for Dean, Castiel is a willing victim of his scheme, and he wraps his arms around Dean’s shoulders to pull him closer. 

The rest of the world pushes in around them. Threats loom over them until sometimes, Castiel can’t see the sun for all the dangers. But with Dean’s body warm and solid next to him, Castiel can believe, even for just a little while, that he and Dean are safe. 

And he knows, somehow, that they’ll be all right in the end. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it! I always enjoy the DCRB, and this year was no different. 
> 
> Give some love to my wonderful artist [perzelndesbaeumchen](https://purzelndesbaeumchen.tumblr.com/)! I had to embed their artwork twice, mostly because I love it so much. And that SUIT! Give them a follow! 
> 
> If you'd like to come yell at me some, you can find me on tumblr at [dothwrites](https://dothwrites.tumblr.com/). I yell about Destiel, and Misha, and sometimes nothing at all. 
> 
> Catch you again later loves. <3


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